Ain't No Rest for the Wicked
by Elle Morgan-Black
Summary: The trials and tribulations of Lucius Malfoy. His son is whiny and indiscreet. His wife is clueless as to how genuinely insane her sister is. The politicians he keeps in his pocket are inept. The Dark Lord is back and has clearly gone off the deep end, and oh yeah, there's this little matter of one scar-faced brat who keeps messing up his evil plans.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I have not abandoned "An Innocent Obsession" or "Scenes from a Seduction," but this story slipped into my mind over the summer, and now that it's almost finished, I'm ready to share. This is mostly canon compliant. Sort of. Just go with it. Rated M for language and references to sex and violence.

Many thanks to Tassana Burfoot, Ariel Riddle, and Lovergurrl411 who read portions of this story and said yes, it really was funny and I should keep writing.

Chapter 1

I had a good life before HE came back, really I did. Oh sure, that whole nasty business with the Dark Lord trying to take over the Wizarding World did not work out how I'd planned or hoped, but on the whole my life was not _bad._

I avoided Azkaban after the first war because frankly, I am too pretty for prison. Can you imagine this glorious mane behind bars? No? Me neither.

A hefty bribe to numerous politicians didn't hurt either.

It was a blow to my ego, no doubt, to have to rely on that "But I was under the _imperius_ curse!" defence. After all, my magical prowess is known far and wide, so it was almost laughable to have to pretend someone could _imperius_ ME. But needs must, so pretend I did.

And so it went. I was saved from prison, and my wife's insane sister, brother-in-law, and his brother were all locked up for life. It wasn't the best possible outcome, but I am nothing if not a consummate Slytherin, and I could plot and plan. I had a beautiful wife, great hair, a perfect heir, and the Malfoy fortune behind me.

What could possibly go wrong?

~oOo~

As it turned out, a lot, actually.

I wanted my heir to attend Durmstrang. They're known for their training in the dark arts. How am I to train my heir for our glorious future as leaders of the magical world if he can't cast a simple _avada kedavra_ at the end of first year? Hogwarts really has gone downhill since Dumbledore took over. But no, my wife insisted her precious baby be close by. Hogwarts is in SCOTLAND, witch! It's not as if he's next door, but we have apparition and floos and portkeys, and damn it, she could just as easily use those to get to Durmstrang.

In retrospect, her logic was fundamentally flawed, and I must shamefully admit I did not notice because I was too busy enjoying her feminine charms. My wife has a rather talented mouth and can be rather, shall we say, _persuasive_ when she wants to be.

So off to Hogwarts Draco was sent.

My son had ONE job. Just one.

Make friends with Harry Potter.

At no more than an infant, barely a toddler really, this child destroyed the Dark Lord, the most evil, powerful wizard known to wizard-kind. Grown men cowered before him, but he was defeated by a BABY. This Potter heir was obviously incredibly powerful himself and destined to be the new Dark Lord. Clearly Draco had to establish himself as Harry Potter's confidante, to rise up with him into a glorious future, as the power behind the throne.

Except that the boy bollocks-ed the whole thing on day one, and all year long - including during school breaks - I had to hear about 'stupid bloody Potter and his stupid bloody broomstick, and his spot on the quidditch team, and the blatant favoritism from Dumbledore.' All legitimate complaints, mind you, not to mention the utter absurdity of Dumbledore hiding a fucking cerebus inside a school filled with CHILDREN.

As I said, Hogwarts has gone downhill. Clearly they could all benefit from my leadership, not to mention good looks. Really, the average age on the Board of Governors is at least 120.

I joined [read: bribed my way onto] the Hogwarts Board of Governors and set about trying to improve the school for the better, but Dumbledore must have blackmail material on some of the other members. That's the only explanation I have for why they pushed for him to remain as headmaster when a creature was literally petrifying students in Draco's second year. Granted, I don't exactly care if a beast eats a few mudbloods, but I had to pretend to in order to push Dumbles out the door.

Seriously, you have an entire school filled with professors - including one teaching about magical creatures - and an entire library filled with books, and NO ONE thought that gee, perhaps Salazar Slytherin's magical beast was a GIANT FUCKING SNAKE? And even then, they LET Dumbledore come back!

There was, of course, that whole incredibly awkward situation with me putting that diary into the youngest Weasley's cauldron. For the record, I did NOT know what it would do. And do you know why? Because I'm not a bloody idiot! When the Dark Lord hands you a diary and says "Hold onto this for me," you don't fucking open it and start writing in it!

Did I read it? That's a dumb fucking question. Of course I opened it and hoped to read about his mysterious origins or the secrets to his fantastical power. The damn thing was blank. I shoved it in a drawer and promptly forgot about it until Arthur Weasley started trying to boost his stature within the Ministry by arranging repeated needless, invasive, and utterly ridiculous raids on my family's ancestral home, all in search of some pathetic excuse to throw me in prison.

He and the rest of those sods at the Ministry are utterly useless at their jobs - which is why the Dark Lord's initial rise to power was so successful - because no less than eight Aurors have handled that diary in the past, looked at a blank diary with an unfamiliar name on it, and shrugged and set it aside. The damn thing leaks dark magic like a fucking sieve. How they failed to notice that is beyond me, but then, I suppose people are always pathetically looking for the most obvious.

It's amazing to me, it really is. All of these invasive searches of my family's home, and they missed so many objects. The education at Hogwarts is so lacking and the Ministry training apparently so poor that Aurors - AURORS - are failing to find objects imbued with dark magic. Anything can be cursed, and honestly, if you want someone to suffer, it makes so much more sense to curse something they would use daily without much thought than some elaborate, exotic dagger or torture device. But then, 'the cursed hairbrush' does not really strike fear into the hearts of anyone.

A lot of magic really boils down to the aesthetic™. Sure, we've got the wizarding wireless and magically connected mirrors and the ability to send instantaneous magical messages, but we rely on owls. Why? Aesthetic™. I appreciate the dramatic as much as the next wizard, perhaps more, which is why I understand the allure of the dark, cursed objects of torture. I am also, however, practical and efficient, which is why I absolutely WOULD curse a hairbrush.

Incidentally, my hairbrush is NOT cursed or charmed. This luxurious mane is au naturale.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Ministry officials in my home.

Weasley himself wandered around my home with a stunned look on his face, as if he hadn't possibly imagined how the better half lives. Then he bumped into Narcissa's favorite Ming vase and broke it. Magic repaired it to an extent, but she's still furious about it. I don't like to be around my wife when she's furious. It's not a safe place to be.

So when I slipped the diary into the youngest Weasley's dumpy little cauldron it was not about trying to kill an 11 year old girl - although to be fair they have so many children, I'm not sure they'd notice if one bit the dust - it was more about getting rid of a dark magical object before someone eventually figured out I had it. I have been so unfairly maligned and persecuted since the Dark Lord's death. Do you have any idea how much time and how many Galleons I've had to spend to cover up my crimes? Do you?

In any case, I did not know that the diary would open Slytherin's mythical Chamber of Secrets or release a beast into the school. It's exceptionally offensive that that crackpot headmaster would think I would risk my heir's life that way, especially after I invested all of those Galleons into new brooms for the entire Slytherin team.

I just wanted to get rid of a dark object that was technically illegal to possess before anyone wised up, and hopefully discredit Arthur Weasley at the same time, thus cutting back on his regular forays into my home to gawk at my wealth and good taste.

I'm still not entirely sure how it all went tits up, but I blame that scar-faced Potter brat. Oh don't get me wrong - I am glad there's no longer a giant fucking snake slithering through the school. I'm glad it's dead. I am supremely upset that a 12 year old was apparently required to save the day because the faculty was too inept to do it or to, you know, call in Aurors to take down the beast.

I'd hoped once it came out that Weasley's daughter was possessed by a dark object that he'd be discredited in some way, but no. Somehow that all became MY fault, and I was forced to resign from the Board of Governors.

On top of that, I lost my servant. Okay, to be fair, Dobby was quite possibly the most inept servant I've ever seen. Narcissa has repeatedly commented that we should have taken on the Black family's practise of mounting the heads of our dead house elves on the wall, as it inspires the right sort of attitude and work ethic in one's servants.

Most of the time my beautiful wife is the absolute pinnacle of perfection and is the sort of pureblood wife any dark wizard would want. And then there are times like that when I am reminded that she is indeed Bellatrix Lestrange's baby sister.

But I digress. Dobby was a terrible servant as he had clearly figured out some sort of loophole in elf magic that helped him circumvent direct orders. Although, to be fair, I did not think I had to say, "DO NOT LET HARRY POTTER KNOW ABOUT THIS."

Draco deserves some of the blame as well. I am a good father, I really am. But even I have my limits. I can only listen to so much whinging about Harry bloody Potter before I snap, and during the summer before my son's second year at Hogwarts, I did indeed tell him, "Merlin's saggy left testicle, son! Shut up about Harry Potter!"

So apparently he whinged incessantly to the only being in the house who would listen to him: Dobby.

I think Dobby was possibly addled a bit. Note to self: stop making the elves bash their heads into the wall when they fail to follow your orders. It apparently causes brain damage. Who knew?

Unceremoniously forced from the Board of Governors and down one house elf, I tried my best to convince Narcissa to transfer Draco to Durmstrang. Hell, even Beauxbatons would be better. Sadly, my pleas fell on deaf ears. I retreated to my study and spent most of my son's third year at Hogwarts scheming, plotting, and blackmailing - my favorite pastimes!

~oOo~

The following year, the Minister for Magic, in his esteemed wisdom, decided it would be appropriate for Dementors - those hideous beings that suck the souls right out of the body - to guard a school filled with children.

I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong?

I will admit that I may have played a small role in that whole soul-sucking-beast-thing. It's not like the Minister was bright enough to come up with that on his own. It was absolutely overkill, but it served its purpose to terrify the masses. To be rather honest, I am surprised parents did not pull their children from the school and tutor them at home. I suppose that says a lot about how lazy wizarding parents are. And no, I did not pull my son and heir from the school either. I don't have time to tutor Draco. I have evil plans and schemes and blackmail to carry out! Pay attention!

Ostensibly the dementors were there to keep escaped murderer Sirius Black from entering the school. That anyone thought Sirius Black was a murderer is just proof of how stupid the general public really is. I mean, I made it through the ENTIRE first war, serving under the Dark Lord, without anyone in any position of power figuring out that gee, Death Eaters are marked with the _morsmordre_ , and if you don't have one, you aren't a REAL Death Eater. Accept no imitations, I say.

The whole point of the mark though is that it operates as a method of communication - the Dark Lord could summon his followers and they could use the mark to portkey directly to him. If our esteemed leader had a spy in Sirius Black, he of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, you can be damned sure the Dark Lord would have marked him.

NO ONE LOOKED AT HIS ARM.

They arrested him and flung him into Azkaban without a trial or _anything_. I thought it the height of absurdity at the time, but as I was enduring my own trial, I wasn't exactly in a position to say, "Um, excuse me, I know all of the Inner Circle, and he's not in it. He's my wife's cousin for fuck's sake. I'd know if he was a Death Eater."

But, you know, if Sirius died in prison - which was what the Wizengamot intended - Draco would be left as the only heir to the Black family, since everyone else had been disowned. Hell, Sirius himself was disowned, but his idiotic younger brother, acting then as head of the family, reinstated him before he died. Ah Regulus...he had so much potential, all derailed due to an unnatural - and some would say unseemly - attachment to a house elf. No, I'm not trying to cast aspersions on the dead. I will just say that there were rumors about Regulus and that elf. That is all. You can draw your own conclusions.

The Malfoys are an ancient family with vast wealth, but it doesn't hurt to inherit more. Bribing politicians can get costly, after all. So, fine, I had a vested interest in keeping quiet about Sirius Black's innocence.

Back to Sirius and his escape from Azkaban. I knew, of course, in my son's third year that there was no real threat from Sirius Black. If he was trying to get into the school, it was surely to get to Harry Potter. It's not like it was a secret that he was the Potter brat's godfather. The dementors were just there to make Dumbledore look bad. Kick me off the Board of Governors, will you? Have some dementors, motherfucker.

I knew, of course, that the real culprit, the traitor who betrayed the light and led to the death of Potter's parents was their friend, Peter Pettigrew. What a pathetic, sniveling, waste of a wizard he was. I cannot for the life of me fathom what Potter, Black, and that miscreant werewolf friend of theirs ever saw in him.

His whole entreaty to the Dark Lord was disgusting. "My L-l-lord, I live to serve you. I've been so mistreated, so _ignored_."

Excuse me while I roll my eyes. No wonder the Dark Lord curses people. If I had to listen to Pettigrew all the time, I'd want to kill someone too.

He went on and on about how hard his life was, as if anyone cared. Of course Dumbledore doesn't appreciate you or value you as a member of his precious Order, you blithering, witless, rat-faced cocksplat. Dumbledore doesn't give a shite about anyone unless they can do something for him.

To be quite honest, I rather respect that in a wizard. It is, after all, not THAT dissimilar to my own life philosophy. Unfortunately, Dumbledore only values wizards and witches who fit into his narrow view of life, and that list is regrettably small. The Malfoys, of course, are nowhere near it. My father, Abraxas, was one of the Dark Lord's early followers after all.

Pettigrew's sole worth to the Dark Lord was that he was friendly with the Potters, and even then, had they not made him Secret Keeper, I've no doubt the Dark Lord would have tortured and killed him at some point, just because he was tired of Peter's incessant sniveling and groveling.

I'm not entirely sure what happened the night the Potters died, but no one has seen hide nor hair of rat-boy since that night. I don't know if Black murdered him, or hell, I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to knock a pawn off the chess board when he had no more use for it. Either way, Pettigrew is DEFINITELY dead. Good riddance, I say.


	2. Chapter 2

_From chapter 1:_

 _I'm not entirely sure what happened the night the Potters died, but no one has seen hide nor hair of rat-boy since that night. I don't know if Black murdered him, or hell, I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to knock a pawn off the chess board when he had no more use for it. Either way, Pettigrew is DEFINITELY dead. Good riddance, I say._

~oOo~

Chapter 2

Well fuck. It so happens that Pettigrew was not dead. Talk about a colossal misjudgment on my part. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let us go back to the summer of 1994, shall we?

I was excited about the Quidditch World Cup Final being played here in England. Not, of course, because I had any real interest in quidditch. It's fine, I suppose. The games are always a bit of a toss-up because sometimes they're over with absurd speed and sometimes they drag on interminably.

No, the real reason I looked forward to the event was because of the camping. Or glamping, really. It is all about having the biggest and the best campsite and tent and hosting the biggest and the best parties. Which is why I told Narcissa that we simply MUST bring the peacocks.

I'm not really an animal person, save for my peacocks. They're solid white, my beautiful darlings, and they love me so. They come when I call, because of course they do. Plus no one _else_ has white peacocks. I love those birds as much as I love my own son. Possibly more, depending on the day. Besides, my precious birds don't bitch about Harry fucking Potter all day. I couldn't possibly leave them behind for several days! It's not like anyone else was going to have white peacocks at their campsites.

My wife was not all sympathetic to my plight. She called glamping with peacocks 'excessive' and 'ostentatious' and said it was 'flaunting our wealth.' Excuse me, but that's EXACTLY what it is SUPPOSED to be. What is the point of being obscenely rich if you can't lord it over everyone else?

I won, of course, as I often do (that whole Durmstrang thing notwithstanding), and my darling birds came with us. I might have had to follow Narcissa around for two days making distressed peacock noises before she caved, but we do what we must. I think it also helped that I tossed some diamonds her way.

The world cup was really a series of highs and lows. High: my family was seated in the Minister's box with high ranking officials from Bulgaria and Ireland, along with the Minister for Magic himself. Where else would a Malfoy be? Low: the box was contaminated with Weasleys, who must have sold their souls to get such prestigious tickets. I loathe the Weasleys, especially Arthur. Even worse, that scar-faced Potter brat was there with his bushy-haired, buck-toothed mudblood friend. Weasleys, Potter, AND a mudblood? What is this world coming to, I ask you?

High: Bulgaria's mascots were a team of comely veela females. Their allure was quite powerful and altogether enjoyable. I was tempted to fling myself out of the box to get to them, but a Malfoy would never behave so inappropriately in public. I decided then that I'd have to see about an orgy with a few of them after the match.

Low: My wife pointing out that our son seemed utterly unaffected by the veela and spent the entirety of their performance watching Potter and the mudblood Granger. This can only mean one of two things: my heir is gayer than Dumbledore at an ice dancing competition, or he has fallen for the mudblood.

I honestly could not tell you which possibility devastates me more.

Actually, wait. I take that back. The gay thing would devastate me more and not just because I need him to produce an heir and carry on the Malfoy name. It would be worse because Draco's attention toward those two vile creatures would imply that IF he's gay, he's gay for _Potter_. My son running off with the half-blood wizard who defeated my lord, cost me my servant and my spot on the Board of Governors, and has been the bane of my existence for the last three years, AND failing in his duty to produce an heir?

Yes, that would definitely be worse than a female mudblood.

Unless their children inherited her hair. That would be truly awful. I wonder if he'd let me put a glamour charm on their children to fix their hair… Although now that I think about it, my wife's odd two-toned hair, which has been steadily turning pale blonde since we married, would seem to indicate that some sort of family magic is at play. That makes me feel better about my son's hypothetical half-blood children, although the image of that mudblood with streaks of Malfoy blonde in her hair is not a pleasant thought.

I was still pondering the horror of my son's unhealthy interest in Potter and Granger when the match ended. I'm not sure who won.

~oOo~

You've no doubt heard of the 'horrors' that took place in the aftermath of the Quidditch World Cup. Let me state, for the record, that it was all grossly misrepresented. Alright, yes, fine, some of the Death Eaters who'd managed to avoid Azkaban - along with some younger eager recruits - cast the _morsmordre_ into the sky and dangled a few muggles above the crowd.

But that's IT.

When I heard wizards and witches complaining about the 'terror' at the World Cup, I wanted to say, "But did you DIE?"

No, no you did not.

No one did.

Because fucking Mulciber didn't want to murder anyone in front of a crowd.

"We can scare people just by tormenting some muggles," he said.

Our group argued back and forth about how far we should go that night and finally agreed that we'd only progress to more graphic means of torture if Mulciber's delicate approach failed to instill an appropriate level of terror in the crowd. He was adamant he was right. I was adamant he was wrong. Bets were made. Yes, we gambled over the effectiveness of torture.

I must sadly admit that he was right, and I lost a bottle of 300-year-old single-barrel firewhiskey over it. It wasn't even decent torture! Flashing some bint's knickers before a crowd while she screams is NOT torture.

Even my wife commented sadly, "That's it? I shall have to write to dear Bella and tell her she did not miss much."

Yet the crowd panicked, became hysterical, and fled. This was a seminal moment for me. I truly had not realised just how pathetic and easily frightened the masses really were.

Yes, I was there that night, in my mask and robe. I participated in the initial march, and then when it became clear that Mulciber was correct and I wasn't going to get to ACTUALLY torture or anyone, I gathered my family and my beloved peacocks and left. Better to leave than have to listen to that poncy fool gloat about how he was right, and I was wrong.

Malfoys are not wrong. Period.

What a fucking waste of time that was.

~oOo~

I must explain here that the Death Eaters were obviously in disarray after the Dark Lord's presumed death in 1981. We were on trial, in prison, or laying low to avoid unwanted Ministry attention. A surprising number of my brothers-in-arms were set free by the Wizengamot. Plenty of that is attributable to bribes, but frankly, a surprising number of acquittals happened because the Ministry is run by a bunch of bloviating idiots. Again, see my statements about Sirius Black.

The Ministry stated adamantly that 'You-Know-Who' was dead and gone, but I knew better. I still had a fucking mark on my arm, didn't I? It was still and dormant, but THERE. Again, bloviating idiots.

We knew our Lord and Saviour, the almighty Lord Voldemort would return to us. It was just a matter of time. Some searched for him. I did not. I had a reputation to rebuild, and eh, I figured he'd turn up eventually.

As I said, I needed to rebuild my family's reputation, which I did by quietly purchasing a few politicians. What? You'd do it too if you had the Galleons. And let me state for the record that I mostly used my politicians for the betterment of wizardkind.

Mostly.

Upon further reflection, perhaps 'betterment' is not the most precise term.

I digress.

Our world pretended to move on, although they still referred to the Dark Lord as "You-Know-Who." That should have been the Minister's first clue that the populace lived in fear. It should have been mine as well, but I was rather busy.

As it turns out, witches _love_ a bad boy. I'd always known this on some level, but I married young and spent the early years of my marriage in service to the Dark Lord. With him gone, my family safe, and a dozen or so politicians in my pocket, I was able to invest a great deal of the 1980s exploring the fairer sex.

This wasn't something I planned, but my wife was immensely devoted to raising our young son, and less interested in fulfilling her wifely duties. I attempted to woo her by whispering sweet nothings like, "Darling, you look ravishing in that gown. You're almost as attractive as I am."

She would blink at me for a moment and roll over saying, "Yes, I suppose so."

I took a more direct approach then and cornered her in bed whilst dangling diamonds over her as a means of enticement. More often than not, she shoved me aside saying, "Lucius, GET OFF!"

I'm TRYING to get off, witch! Do your part here!

Alas, Narcissa prefers to only put out when she wants something.

Having only experienced the feminine charms of my wife, you can imagine my surprise then when I went out for drinks with Yaxley and Rosier and a comely brunette with enormous tits asked if she could see my wand. A bit in my cups that night, I showed her the elm wand I keep stowed inside my snakehead cane (which is purely for aesthetics™, by the way. I don't actually need a cane). I wasn't sober enough to realise she was propositioning me. Yaxley and Rosier - those fuckers - never let me live that down.

That was the night I learned that the world is filled with filthy, kinky, dirty witches who think that just because you wear a mask and torture and kill a bunch of people, you're some sort of deviant pervert. As if!

If I was not a deviant pervert then, I became one in short order. I had a string of mistresses in those years, all beautiful witches whom I kept around until they did unforgivable things like ask if I'd consider divorcing my wife or claim their hair is prettier than mine. This lustrous mane is insured for over a million Galleons, okay?

I got quite a bit of a reputation during that time for being a ladies' man. Somehow along the way I picked up sobriquets like "Luscious Lucius" and "the Slytherin Sex God." I'm rather proud of those, by the way, but let me state that I did NOT start the rumours of those nicknames or of my prowess in the bedroom. Absolutely not. I paid Selwyn to do it.

Before the Dark Lord's downfall, I worked out my anger and frustration by attacking muggles, blood traitors, and the like. After he was gone, I had to expend that energy somehow, and really, carnal intimacies are much more fun - and less likely to result in a dementor's kiss - than murder.

Eventually though, I was unable to ignore the call of my brethren. More specifically, Dolohov popping in on me in bed with a naked witch and telling me, "Get on the broom, loser. Let's go shopping."

Dolohov lacks subtlety.

I was put out at first because I thought he was talking to the French contortionist witch who was my mistress at the time, but then I realised he meant me. The nerve of some people! I am not a loser! Malfoys never lose.

I was, however, happy to go shopping, until I figured out that Dolohov, for reasons still unknown, uses 'shopping' as some sort of euphemism for meeting up with other Death Eaters to kill something. He still has not apologised for that time he got blood ALL OVER my favorite velvet cloak.

Anyway, that was how I was brought back into the Death Eaters. It was a poorly organised group with no clear leader, which meant that we spent most of our time arguing about big things like 'vision' and 'Do you think we should keep the name Death Eaters now that the Dark Lord is gone? We don't really EAT death. We bring it. Or, well, maybe we don't bring it. You can't really BRING death, can you? It's more like we deliver it.'

Death's Delivery Service does not really strike fear in the hearts of anyone.

We had been reduced to such a pathetic state.

~oOo~

A few notes, giving credit where credit is due:

Lucius making distressed peacock noises to convince Narcissa to bring the peacocks to the Quidditch World Cup was inspired by a tumblr post that has been making the rounds for years.

"Luscious Lucius" and "Slytherin Sex God" are sobriquets that have been applied to Lucius or to Lucius and Draco in fanfiction repeatedly, so I can't take credit for them, but I thought it would be funny if Lucius paid someone to start a rumour about his sexual prowess.

"But did you DIE?" is borrowed from The Hangover 2

"Get on the broom bitch, let's go shopping," is a spoof on the line from 'Mean Girls.'


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Dark Lord's return was not a wholly unexpected development for me. I mean, sure, it was nice to have someone who could stop the petty arguments over Death Eaters vs. Death Bringers/Deliverers. I had always thought though that if or when he returned, it would be… different. Better.

I was shocked to find out that Pettigrew was not only still alive but was largely responsible for our leader's resurrection. On the one hand, I was envious, for it was clear that the Dark Lord valued Pettigrew's unfailing loyalty. On the other hand… oh.

Wait.

Pettigrew doesn't HAVE another hand.

Okay, _fine_ , the Dark Lord was angered by the innocent act I'd played for years whilst engaging in mass debauchery, but at least I still have both of my hands.

And my nose. Which is more than I can say for the Dark Lord.

I was most perplexed by the Dark Lord's resurrected form: no visible hair, pale grey skin, red eyes, and most disturbingly of all, no nose. I'd not really given thought to noses before, but it's just wrong to look upon someone who has no nose. If it were possible for a human to mate with a snake, their offspring would likely resemble the Dark Lord, and not in a good way. I understand his adulation for his family name and heritage, but really, this is taking the matter a bit far.

My Lord's return was not exactly surprising. As I've said, I still had the mark on my arm, so I knew he was not truly dead and gone. I wanted him to come back. Our takeover of the wizarding world had stalled out after he left the first time, and I had thought that if he ever did somehow return to us, he would lead us into a glorious revolution where we would once and for all depose of Dumbledore, seize control of the Ministry, and triumphantly lead magical Britain into a bright future without muggle influence.

So yes, I was pleased at his return, but it did not really go as I had anticipated.

For starters, one obnoxious aspect of the resurrection was that apparently The Seating Chart™ was back in full force.

The minutiae of an evil takeover is perhaps a dull subject but one that is mostly overlooked by the general public. In the early days of the Dark Lord's rise to power, it was safest for his followers to be hidden from public view. Hence the need for hoods and masks.

But if everyone is in the same mask, how do you know who is who? Is that Severus Snape who just got hit with a curse - in which case of course I'll help him - or is it Dolohov? If it's Dolohov, he's on his own because he's an arse to me most of the time. Do you see what I mean?

So the Dark Lord, in his infinite wisdom, made us add designs to our masks. Naturally, mine had to be the most elaborate and the best, because I am a Malfoy. My Lord was unimpressed with the bedazzled, bejeweled mask I proudly showed him and made me redo it, saying, "For fuck's sake, it's meant to CONCEAL your identity, not scream 'I'M LUCIUS FUCKING MALFOY!'"

Incidentally, I was not the only Death Eater to incur the Dark Lord's wrath over the whole mask-decorating thing. Rowle managed to royally piss him off as well.

You see, Thorfinn Rowle went through a bit of an identity crisis during the Dark Lord's initial rise to power. He spent some time researching the Rowle family heritage and talking to various portraits, until he discovered that he was a Viking.

Let me clarify that. _Rowle_ believes that he is a Viking. The rest of us know because we've listened to him ramble about his "brave and glorious heritage" _ad nauseum_ that many generations ago, an invading Viking wizard banged a comely English lass, got her up the duff, and decided to stick around because the weather was marginally nicer here. Period. End of story. It happened so long ago that there's probably only a drop of Viking blood left in him, but Rowle embraced his "noble family heritage," and decided to run with it. He was helped, no doubt, by his given name.

Suddenly he wanted everyone to call him Thor, in honor of Thor, the Norse god of thunder and began speaking with this absurd accent he insisted made him sound like his "noble Viking ancestors." He became obsessed with Norse mythology and even ran into a skirmish with Aurors yelling, "FOR ASGARD!" It was embarrassing, to say the least.

When it came time for mask decorating, Rowle decided that his must include a traditional Norse beard with beading. The Dark Lord was unimpressed. At least it took some heat off of me.

In addition to a session of the dark arts and crafts for the purposes of mask-making, we had to learn who was who based solely on the designs of their masks. Flashcards and quizzes were involved.

If that wasn't enough, we had to have a seating chart. Yes, I am ashamed to admit that the Death Eaters had a seating chart.

Why, you ask?

You see, WE were all expected to know who is who based solely on the design of our masks, but the Dark Lord could not be arsed to remember that sort of thing. Apparently hacking off chunks of your soul like it's an ingredient you're chopping for a potion does bad things to your memory.

So he designed The Seating Chart™.

This was a painful exercise for all of us. He presented it to us and made us practise getting into 'formation,' as he called it. There were clear flaws in his chart from the start. Alecto Carrow had a fling with Yaxley, and their breakup was very nasty, so you cannot put Yaxley near either of the Carrows. They're mostly over it now, but back in the day…it was bad. No one wants to be next to Bellatrix because she's fucking insane, and yet she's inevitably close enough to the Dark Lord that if you want to be near him, you have to deal with her. Rodolphus doesn't even want to be next to her, but he married her, so he's stuck there. Crabbe and Goyle Senior cannot be next to each other because they're too easily distracted and both, frankly, are dumber than a box of rocks.

The Seating Chart underwent many revisions, necessitating many sessions practising arriving at some location and getting into formation or walking into a large room and sitting in the correct spot. Once when the Dark Lord summoned us all, Rowle showed up dressed like an actual Viking complete with over the top horned helmet, absurdly proud of himself because his costume was "authentic" and he'd made it himself. The Dark Lord was most displeased by Rowle's costume (even as he protested, "It's NOT a COSTUME you wanker, Malfoy! It's TRADITIONAL Viking armour!") because it was horribly over the top and conspicuous, and what if he'd called his brethren to him for a battle instead of just a Seating Chart practice?

This was when we learned from Rowle that muggles apparently have entire Viking festivals in which they dress up in this absurd gear and… I'm not really sure. Eat turkey legs? Kill things? Muggles are such strange and confusing creatures. The Dark Lord listened to Rowle rant about his noble heritage and the need for such festivals in wizarding Britain for a surprising amount of time before hitting him with a _crucio_ and telling him to get into formation and shut up before he cut out his tongue.

Anyway, it was inevitable that as soon as we all learned where we were supposed to be, someone would get into a dispute with someone else, or Alecto would have yet another fling with another member of the inner circle that would go south, and the Dark Lord would have to rearrange us again. He finally issued a blanket decree to all of us to 'keep your dicks to yourself and stop fucking each other.' As if I'd touch Bellatrix or Alecto. I have standards.

I suppose I can see the wisdom of the finished result: no matter where we appeared, we all initially gathered in the same formation, and he could immediately glance about him and tell straight away who was absent. Much more efficient than a roll call, I suppose, but then, we wasted a bloody obscene amount of time learning it. For all of those who think being in the inner circle is all fun and games and torture and death, know that it also involves inane things like seating charts and mask-making sessions.

I tell you all of this so you know that on the eve of his resurrection, I was not just waiting around for my arm to feel like it was being burned off. I had to leave an important social engagement of the naked sort and then beat an elf when the blasted creature could not find my Death Eaters robes and mask. Apparently they'd been stashed in the attic, hidden from Arthur Weasley's stupid raids.

So I was late.

And my Lord and Savior knew it because there was an empty spot where I was supposed to be. Bloody fucking hell.

I groveled. I am not proud of this, for Malfoys do not like to bow and scrape before anyone, but I groveled. You'd do the same too in my position. The Dark Lord is powerful and terrifying, especially with red eyes and without a nose.

I realised that fateful night in the cemetery though that whatever Pettigrew did to return the Dark Lord to us may have addled his mind. I mean, even worse than that whole soul hacking thing he apparently did with the horcruxes.

Case in point: he had the scar-faced Potter brat RIGHT THERE. We all stood around and WATCHED as our Lord had the whelp captive and unable to move. He reached out and touched the scar on Potter's face.

Merlin's saggy left testicle, man! THIS IS WHEN YOU KILL THE LITTLE SNOT!

Look, I understand wanting to do something of great importance with a level a certain level of pomp and flourish. I truly do. I am all about appearances and aesthetic, after all.

But the last time the Dark Lord attempted to end Potter, the brat was merely a baby and yet managed to destroy his corporeal form. Let's, you know, maybe NOT underestimate him now that he's 14 and has repeatedly thwarted our evil plans.

Potter was literally held captive. Without his wand.

The Dark Lord had a wand.

This is not NEWT level potions here.

This does not require thought.

Cast an _avada kedavra_.

Hell, cast a slicing hex across his throat and stand there and watch him bleed to death. Sever his head from his body. Disembowel him.

I stood there watching them and thought of AT LEAST two dozen different ways I could kill the Potter brat with just my wand. That doesn't even get into all the ways you could kill someone with your bare hands or with whatever instruments of torture are handy. Pick up a rock and whack him in the head, damn it! Sure, it's primitive and muggle to use your hands or a rock or a big stick. Just do something to kill him already. Get creative!

I would have spoken up along those lines and suggested that perhaps we speed this up a bit and kill the brat already so I could go back to the naked Bulgarian witch I was entertaining, but the Dark Lord was still angry with me, so I held my tongue and waited for him to finish off Potter.

The Dark Lord GAVE HIM BACK HIS WAND.

No. Just… no. I just can't even...

They dueled.

Look, I understand that dueling has a long and storied history in the wizarding world, and it's honorable to defeat your opponent in a duel to the death.

But really, just kill the brat so we can all go home. Did I mention that this witch was half-veela? And _naked_.

They dueled. Something most peculiar happened when spells from their wands met. I'd never seen such a thing happen before. The next thing I know, Potter has managed to escape, dragging the body of a student along with him.

I may hate that kid, but at that moment, I wanted to grab the portkey and leave with him because the last place anyone wants to be is around the Dark Lord when he's angry. He destroyed most of the cemetery in his fury before casting an array of hexes at all of us. Eventually he let us leave, telling us he would summon us later.

I returned home at midnight, much worse for wear and incredibly put out that the little veela had not waited around for me. That night I told my wife the grave news that the Dark Lord had returned but was not as he was before. Narcissa blinked at me for a long moment and then said, "Oh, we must welcome him back with a formal ball then! I shall write to Bella and give her the good news."

I was just TORTURED, and she's thinking about a bloody ball.

I hate my life sometimes.

~oOo~

People have this mistaken impression about the Death Eaters, that we're all Slytherins. I don't mind the moronic masses thinking that Slytherin House is a breeding ground for revolutionaries and terrorists. I'm quite fine with that notion, but the truth - the unvarnished truth - is that we're a mix of houses. Oh sure, the original Knights of Walpurgis were all Slytherins because the Dark Lord - last remaining heir to Salazar Slytherin - gathered his early followers from his own house. But as time went on, he expanded his reach. This was to our benefit, of course.

Allow me to explain.

Gryffindors have a reputation for being brave, but really, they lack impulse control. They're exactly the sort of people you want to send into battle first because they're fucking crazy. They haven't figured out that they're basically wand fodder because they're too busy wanting to prove themselves as the bravest, most daring of the bunch. Give them a dare, and they just can't help themselves. You can tell a group of Gryffindors, "I dare you to blow up that building!" and they'll outdo themselves trying to create the biggest explosion possible.

You always want Ravenclaws on your team too, because they're creative in a really brilliant and horrific sort of way. The worst, most gruesome torture spells out there, really dark magic? All created by Ravenclaws. You have to really think outside the box to imagine and then create a curse that makes your victim's entrails liquify and leak out of their ears. They're not always the best in battle because they're wizards of thought not action, but they're needed virtually everywhere else in your organisation.

Hufflepuffs are the shat upon house by most of wizarding England: the miscellaneous house, the kids who aren't smart or brave or cunning enough. The truth though is that Hufflepuffs are absurdly hard-working, low-drama, and loyal to a fault, and you want a lot of them in your army. You can send a pair of Hufflepuffs into the dungeons and say, "Now, don't come back until the prisoners confess all, but make sure you take turns cursing them." You have to appeal to their sense of fairness, you see. It wouldn't do for one to get to torture more than the other. And they'll do it, and they'll be thorough as fuck because they don't want anyone to think they're lazy slackers.

And then there are the Slytherins. We Slytherins have to be the best, and we're rather good at plotting and scheming and figuring out how to fight dirty and not get caught and still win it all. Which is why I'm utterly lost as to the Dark Lord's motives.

He is a Slytherin. He is THE Slytherin, the last living heir of Salazar Slytherin himself.

Did the Potter brat wreck part of our Lord's mind? Did he lose some of his innate intelligence when Pettigrew dumped him into that cauldron? I swear, he is possibly the worst villain I've seen in a long time.

I mean, He lost to a BABY. How do you do that? Really, I want to know.

Now, if I was in the Dark Lord's shoes - well, let's face it, I would not end up bald and noseless - and had I lost my corporeal form to a toddler because of a somehow miscast _avada kedavra_ , I would not be so eager to try that spell out on that kid again. I would not have utterly botched a golden opportunity to kill the scar-faced Potter brat in the cemetery.

And I would have had a fucking PLAN for how I was going to take over the wizarding world once I got my body back. Supposedly our Lord and Savior floated about body-less for YEARS, yet with a somehow functioning, conscious mind. In all that time, he couldn't come up with a plan of action?

In the year following his resurrection, the Dark Lord seemed to flit about from project to project with mixed results whilst ranting about wanting to 'end that fucker Dumbledick and Harry Potter.' I appreciated that he seemed to be devoting some time to planning, but I could see errors immediately. He rebuffed all of my attempts to help and told me to go do something useful. Ugh. Fine!

Pettigrew apparently spent years living as a rat - how apropos - with the Weasley family. The Dark Lord went on and on about how wonderful it was that we'd essentially had a spy in a light family for years, ignoring that Pettigrew hadn't been there since 1994 and thus had no idea what the Weasel pack was doing now.

He did, however, know exactly where the family's home was, even though it was under various concealment charms. Excellent, I thought. Let's burn it to the ground and teach that meddling Arthur Weasley to stay away from _my_ ancestral home.

Except that no, for whatever inane reason, THAT was not a priority. Excuse me, but you have an opportunity to destroy the home of a very large family who happen to be some of Dumbledore's biggest supporters. They're POOR. They can't afford to rebuild. Do it now and cause enough chaos that they can't easily regroup and support Dumbledore. Why does no one listen to me? I am more than just a pretty face! I am a master of strategy!

Prior to the Dark Lord's return, I had been plotting to place a Ministry official in Hogwarts to try to bring Dumbledore in line and ease into a takeover of the school. So when the Dark Lord rebuffed my attempts to help him plot the murder of the scar-faced Potter brat, I returned to my plans to use the Minister for Magic - one of my many bought and paid for politicians - to takeover Hogwarts. The problem was that the Minister for Magic, is an inept idiot and an utter waste of Galleons and space.

He appointed Dolores Umbridge that following school term.

I could not have selected a worse candidate for the job. First, the mere sight of her causes scrotums to shrivel and dicks to wilt. She's hideous. Should you find yourself in her presence, I recommend not looking her directly in the eyes. Think of her as a basilisk because really, that's about how attractive she is.

Look, appearance matters. Teenage witches and wizards are shallow little fuckers, and the presence of a beautiful witch or a handsome wizard sets their minds at ease. They're far more likely to approach and confide in an attractive person. I would know. You wouldn't BELIEVE the things people tell me just because I'm beautiful.

Umbridge's manner is also thoroughly off-putting, and I soon heard from my son that every policy she attempted to enact was extremely unpopular. It was plainly obvious to me that instead of cleverly swaying the student body in her favour and gaining the trust of the faculty to wrest control from Dumbledore that her actions would result in a rebellion.

Still, I did suggest that Draco join her Inquisitorial Squad because it's always preferable to dole out punishments rather than receive them, and it would give him an opportunity to spy on others. The name was terrible though. Call it something kind and gentle like the "Student Support Group," a bunch of dumb Hufflepuffs will tell you EVERYTHING.

But no. Inquisitorial Squad. I'm reminded of the Spanish Inquisition. When I mentioned this to Draco during a Hogsmeade weekend, he said, "But father - no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

And then he nearly fell into his butterbeer, laughing as if he'd told some fabulous joke.

Apparently this had something to do with muggle studies? Some bit of muggle humour about a bloke named Monty and his python? I am still very confused about that. I thought perhaps 'python' might have been a euphemism for dick, but I'm unclear on that. Maybe this Monty bloke does have an actual snake? Regardless, there was nothing humorous about the Spanish Inquisition. What the hell are they teaching the students at this school?

I was equally troubled by my son's apparent desire to use his role to 'spy on Potter and his filthy little mudblood.' Sometimes it's best to just let Draco complain, in the hopes that once he's gotten it all out, he'll shut the hell up. I listened to him rant whilst debating the pros and cons of just outright murdering that Granger chit myself. My son is still rather obsessed with her and Potter both, and the Dark Lord will not permit anyone ELSE to murder Potter (again, bad strategic move, in my not-so-humble opinion, but the Dark Lord does not listen to reason). Still, he'd not said anything about the mudblood. I thought perhaps if I killed her, I wouldn't have to listen to Draco talk about her and her enormous hair. Then perhaps if the Dark Lord ended Potter, I'd get some peace and quiet from my son…

~oOo~

 _Giving credit where credit is due: Many thanks to Dramione author and friend Maloreiy, who attended a Viking festival and came back giggling over the idea that perhaps Thorfinn Rowle was a Viking. Over a totally ridiculous Facebook chat, we bounced ideas back and forth about how Rowle might be a tad over the top about his Viking ancestry, and the bits about Rowle in this story are from that chat. The idea of a Death Eater Seating Chart came from tumblr user bonusvampirus. The "dark arts and crafts" phrase is from a fandom meme of Snape with art supplies. Some of Lucius's frustration in this chapter about the Dark Lord's failure as a villain came from conversations with my daughter, who at 11 pointed out all of the ways Voldemort could have been a better, more effective bad guy. Draco's line about the Spanish Inquisition is from Monty Python._

 _I hope you're enjoying this over the top look at the series from Lucius's point of view. As always, I welcome your comments, thoughts, questions, feedback, etc.!_

 _Cheers,  
Elle_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was during Draco's fifth year at Hogwarts that a travesty occurred. It was a black, black day in my life. Ironic, really, given that this tragedy of a day was the result of the Black family. Bellatrix Black Lestrange, her husband Rodolphus, and his brother Rabastan were released from Azkaban. And by "released" I mean the Dark Lord broke them out along with a handful of other Death Eaters who'd been rotting away since 1981.

An outside observer might think that the return of my wife's relatives would be a happy occasion, but they would be mistaken. Bellatrix is insane. Full stop. This is painfully, blatantly obvious to anyone who has ever cared to look.

My wife, regrettably, does not care to look. Never has, probably never will. Let me take you back in time for a moment.

Many years ago, my father decided that his only son and heir should wed a member of the Black family. I suppose I can see how father might think this appropriate. The Malfoys have long been a small family, and the Blacks tended to produce several children apiece. They're purebloods, Sacred 28, and closely associated with the dark. Seems like a winning idea, does it not?

He suggested Bellatrix for a wife.

I threatened to cut off my glorious mane of blond hair, snap my own wand, and take up life as a muggle.

It's possible I was a wee bit dramatic in my response, but I lived with the witch in the Slytherin dorms for years and had ample opportunity to witness her special brand of crazy firsthand. She once neutered a niffler in the Slytherin common room, using utensils taken from dinner in the Great Hall. That's not the sort of witch a wizard wants near his 'wand,' if you know what I mean.

I suggested Andromeda, which seemed like a brilliant idea if I do say so myself. A wizard is of course superior to his witch, and I let Andromeda know what I would expect of her as a wife. That vicious bitch punched me in a rather sensitive location. It was totally uncalled for! I simply could not abide by that level of violence against my person. She ran off with a mudblood Hufflepuff, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

And so I ended up with Narcissa. Beautiful, cold Narcissa who seemed to be perfect for me until I realised she was utterly incapable of seeing what an absolute lunatic her sister is.

I attended Bellatrix's wedding to Rodolphus Lestrange, as Narcissa was then my betrothed. The groom spent most of the ceremony eyeing the bride's cousin, Regulus Black, and after the ceremony, I accidentally stumbled across the bride getting it on with a wizard I immediately recognised as the Dark Lord. Infidelity isn't exactly unheard of in our world, but for Merlin's sake, at least close the goddamn door before you cheat on your husband at your own wedding reception!

Narcissa nattered about at the reception, rambling about how lovely a couple "Bella and Roddy" made together, until I finally told her what I'd witnessed. She blinked at me for a moment and said, "Oh how lovely for Bella to receive such favour from our Lord. Roddy must be so proud. I'm sure he and Bella will be most delightfully happy together."

She said it with a straight face. I thought perhaps she was being facetious, but no. She was serious.

If I thought that was bad, my own wedding was even worse when it came to the Black sisters.

Bellatrix's 'wedding gift' to us was the bloody heart of a thestral.

At the time, I was already in service to the Dark Lord and had cast an _avada_ or two of my own, so I knew what it was, and I could see it clearly, resting on a soggy bed of black velvet.

Narcissa's reaction? "Oh, look Lucius! Isn't that thoughtful? What a unique gift!"

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

I thought at first she was just being polite and could only see an empty box with wet velvet inside, so when Bellatrix wandered off to wreak havoc elsewhere, I asked Narcissa if she knew what was actually in the box. She looked up at me, all wide-eyed and beautiful and said very innocently, "It's the bloody heart of a thestral, darling. Surely you've killed enough people to see it."

Well, yes. Yes, I had, but I did not think my virginal, prim wife had witnessed death!

Narcissa wandered off then, murmuring about needing to find "the proper place to display this lovely gift," and I was left to wonder if perhaps I might have been better off with Andromeda after all.

It was a relief when Bellatrix was sent to Azkaban. I'd grown weary by that point of trying to keep her away from little Draco. I'd really like my heir to live to reproduce and carry on the family name, thank you very much, and his aunt seemed to think that torture is an appropriate part of raising a child. I'm still seriously questioning how Cygnus Black and Druella Rosier raised their daughters.

But then Bellatrix was released, and it was painfully clear that Azkaban had not done anything for her mental constitution. Or her hair. Or her teeth. For Merlin's sake, what the fuck was that woman chewing on in Azkaban to have teeth like that? I was afraid to ask. Knowing Bellatrix, she was probably giving a blowjob to a dementor.

Her release was an unfortunate reminder that my wife is apparently insane as well.

"Oh darling, won't it be lovely for Draco to spend time getting to know his Auntie and Uncle?"

No, no it won't be. My son - it pains me to admit this - has a rather weak constitution. Apparently I was too soft with him in his tender youth. It would not take much for someone as insane as Bellatrix to break him. I could not allow this to happen. If I lost Draco, I'd have to start all over again with Narcissa to make a new heir, and I simply cannot guarantee any future offspring would inherit the Malfoy sensibilities. My little dragon may be more delicate than I prefer, but at least he seems to have escaped the Black family's madness.

Or, well, at least I think he's escaped the Black family's madness. His ongoing obsession with the scar-faced Potter brat and the mudblood is troubling.

It wasn't just Narcissa wanting Draco to spend time with his Black and Lestrange relatives though. No, she wanted us ALL to be subjected to them.

"Oh darling, we simply must have Bellatrix and Rodolphus stay with us!"

No, no we mustn't.

Except apparently we must because the Dark Lord thinks it's a bloody good idea. Had I known then that he apparently wanted her close by for a quick shag, I would have just refused him and accepted torture. Maybe he would have killed me then and I'd have been free of this misery because damn it, no one wants to see Bellatrix getting it on with the Dark Lord.

Oh sure, it might have been vaguely stimulating to watch once upon a time, before Azkaban wrecked her looks and the Potter brat cost the Dark Lord his hair, fair complexion, and, well, his nose. There is nothing arousing now about watching Bellatrix skip down the hall with her tits out, singing about bathing in the blood of muggles while worshipping the Dark Lord's, ahem, _wand_. If I must be brutally honest, I am amazed that his body is intact enough for _that._ How do you resurrect yourself and come back without a nose but with a functioning dick? I guess that just goes to show you his priorities…

Not that I would necessarily prioritise my nose over my own dick because I am rather attached to my "anaconda" as I nicknamed it years ago, but when one is left with the snakelike visage of the Dark Lord, surely there aren't a lot of witches beating down his door.

Just Bellatrix, apparently.

I'm still having nightmares about that time I witnessed them shagging on my dining room table. I have to EAT there! Is nothing sacred?

I told Narcissa what I saw, and she looked at me blankly and said, "Poor Rodolphus must feel so left out. Perhaps you can find a muggle for him and Rabastan to torture."

And then she walked away. Like nothing untoward had happened.

Who does that?

I am rather concerned about the upbringing my wife apparently endured. Did her parents drop her on her head as a small child?

Bellatrix then took to ruffling my perfect hair and calling me "Luci" every time she saw me. The indignity of it all! I complained to the Dark Lord about this because honestly, how can I be expected to command respect from fellow Death Eaters when Bellatrix mocks me so? He said unless I was planning to fuck him in her place, I could quit complaining about her.

I have nightmares now from the mental picture THAT produced.

I suppose it was naive of me to hope that Bellatrix's husband would rein her in in some way. He never was good at that before Azkaban, but once out of prison, he and his brother wandered my glorious ancestral home, as if under a permanent _confundus_ spell. Oh they'd happily engage in a spot of torture, but they were otherwise worthless. I had only one thought as I watched the pair of them try to carry on a conversation with a suit of armour in my home: 'Thank fuck they're not all on the team of Death Eaters I'm expected to lead.'

~oOo~

As it turns out, I was cursed. Cursed by Merlin himself, apparently, and doomed to an existence of misery and despair because I somehow displeased the Dark Lord, and as a result Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan were all put on a team of Death Eaters I was expected to lead.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

The Dark Lord had an utterly preposterous plan to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries. I told him that you can't just _imperius_ Ministry workers to steal a prophecy if the prophecy does not apply to them, but he doesn't listen to reason. If you're going to _imperius_ someone to steal a prophecy, _imperius_ the person whose name is actually ON the prophecy. Hello? Is this not common sense? I understand the allure of devious schemes and complex planning, but that's for large scale plans, like the takeover of the whole wizarding world.

The prophecy, according to Severus, who heard it from Trelawny and Dumbledore, who told the Dark Lord, who then told me, should have Lord Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore, Sybil Trelawney, and Harry Potter's names on it. The easiest solution would be for the Dark Lord to go get his own bloody prophecy. Avery tried to tell him this and was tortured for his impertinence.

Okay, fine, the Dark Lord would prefer to keep his resurrection a secret for the time being. I can't say I agree with that strategy, but so be it. Right now he is deriving a great deal of glee from the Ministry's denials about his return. He tends to wave the 'Daily Prophet' about at our regular Death Eater meetings (with everyone in formation of course), cackling about how Rita Skeeter is painting Harry Potter as deranged. I see this eventually backfiring, as at some point, the Dark Lord will reveal himself to the masses, and Potter will get to give the whole wizarding world a giant "fuck you, I told you so."

If the Dark Lord wouldn't go get his own prophecy, the obvious solution then was to simply use the _imperius_ curse on Sybil Trelawney. The old bat was rarely in her right mind anyway, and the word from Severus was that she spent most of her weekends getting soused at the Three Broomsticks. I could _imperius_ her, get the prophecy, and get her back to Hogwarts before the weekend was out, and she'd probably think the whole thing a hallucination brought on by too much firewhiskey.

But no.

The Dark Lord, in his infinite 'wisdom,' devised an elaborate plan involving the use of false images shared with the Potter brat to lure him into the DoM to get the prophecy instead, and then have us lying in wait to take it from him. Whilst the mind connection the Dark Lord appeared to share with Potter was indeed curious, testing it in such a way was a vast waste of resources, as it required that I break into the Ministry and just sit there with a whole bloody team of Death Eaters and wait for Potter to act. It also assumed that Potter WILL act.

Oh hell, who am I kidding? Of course he was going to act. Never in my life have I met a more deliberately reckless individual than Harry Potter.

Well, Bellatrix perhaps, I suppose, is rather reckless as well, but she's always been crazy. I don't _think_ Potter is crazy…

Regardless, it was an utter waste of my valuable time, although I must confess that the mental picture of myself appearing in a swirl of fog and magic in my Death Eater robes and mask, surrounded by thousands of glass prophecies is a rather impressive sight, and I do appreciate aesthetic™, after all.

Then the hammer fell. He made me take Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan with me as part of my team. HAD I NOT SUFFERED ENOUGH? This was a delicate operation requiring finesse, and I had to take the equivalent of three rabid blast-ended skrewts with me.

I should have known the entire mission would go tits up.

The mission nearly did not happen at all because Umbitch apparently did not get the memo - thanks a fucking lot, Dolohov - that she was supposed to turn a blind eye to Potter and his friends sneaking out of the castle. I found out much later that Potter's mudblood actually lured Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest and handed her over to the centaurs to do with as they pleased. Knowing what centaurs are prone to do with female humans, I was a bit surprised by the mudblood's actions. Who knew she had that kind of darkness in her? Unexpected evil like that is a bit arousing, even if it does come from a mudblood.

I wondered if perhaps I'd misjudged the chit and thought that perhaps when the Dark Lord secured a glorious victory, he'd let me have the mudblood as a reward. Except that then I'd still have to listen to Draco bitch and moan about her. Then I thought that maybe I'd give her to Draco as a pet. That might be better. Potter dead, Granger as Draco's playtoy. I thought perhaps if that came to pass I might play with her as well.

Where was I? Oh. Yes. The combination of Potter and Bellatrix was just too much. Potter blew up no less than 3,000 prophecies. The sheer volume of prophecies in that godforsaken hall makes me question the validity of whatever Trelawney supposed viewed in her mind's eye or however the fuck seers get their visions of the future. I have a hard time believing that someone could predict everything in that Hall of Prophecies with accuracy. If they could, such wizards or witches would already be making a killing betting on quidditch matches the outcomes of which they already know. I suspect that some of the prophecies Potter destroyed were of utterly mundane things.

I guess now we'll never know how many of them were accurate. If a prophecy is destroyed, does that nullify it? I have pondered that question a lot, given everything that happened. It's sort of the equivalent of 'if a centaur shits in the woods and there's no one there to see it…' I don't know. I don't have all the answers here.

Back to the mission.

I was given strict orders to NOT harm the scar-faced Potter brat, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. He was a thorn in the Dark Lord's side, and he must be removed. Why not let someone cut him down in battle? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

But no. No, none of us were allowed to touch him. The Dark Lord was adamant that he and he alone must be the one to end Potter. His obsession with the brat was most counterproductive. Who cares who ends Potter as long as SOMEONE does it?

In my frustration over the lack of permission to kill Potter and my admitted difficulty controlling a bunch of bloodthirsty and mostly insane Death Eaters, I might have been a tiny bit over-indulgent with my team. If I wasn't going to let them kill Potter, per the Dark Lord's orders, I had to give them _something_.

So I told them they could kill everyone else.

I didn't MEAN it.

Not really.

I am not a vicious wizard. I am dark, yes, and sure, I've killed before, but they're CHILDREN. I have no issue with killing muggles, but I generally try to avoid the murder of magical children, no matter how filthy or traitorous their blood. Really, it's poor form to murder children. It's better to let them grow up before you kill them. There's more sport that way.

And then of course, we lost a lot of wizards and witches in the Dark Lord's original rise to power. We - magical Britain - are already a small and insulated community. It's not like there are a lot of us. Simple mathematics, really. If we kill off too many mudbloods and blood traitors, then eventually we'll all be marrying close kin, and frankly, that's not a good thing. If you inbreed any species enough they go mad. Dobby is proof of that. Hell, Bellatrix is probably proof of that too now that I think about it.

Also, if you kill off ALL of the underclass, who will be left to be my lackeys and worship me?

So no, I did not really mean it when I told them they could kill everyone else. To be brutally honest, it was a flippant throwaway statement made in the heat of the moment because Bellatrix would not let go of my arm.

She kept tugging on me, whinging, "But I wanna _kill_ something! My Lord told me I could kill something. Pleeeeeeease! Luci, you don't understand! FOURTEEN YEARS! I served my Lord, I waited in Azkaban! I deserve to kill something! Why can't I kill ickle, bitty, baby Potter? It's NOT FAIR!"

It was worse than listening to Draco whinge about wanting a pony or bitch about that scar-faced Potter brat. That I did not snap and kill Bellatrix is the real miracle here, and NO ONE seems to appreciate that.

Ever the strategist, I divided my team and sent them off to round up the unruly miscreants and get back the prophecy. This should have worked. They're SCHOOL CHILDREN for fuck's sake.

I know what it's like to try to track down Draco. It's not fucking hard. Hell, if you just yell something about Harry Potter or his mudblood, Draco will probably come running.

I've realised something though. All this time, I had railed against Dumbledore for the Little School of Horrors he was running - three-headed dogs, basilisks, werewolf professors, wizard death tournaments, etc. - but he was apparently using the school as a do-or-die training ground for his precious Gryffindors.

I decided then and there that I'd have to speak to Severus about setting up some sort of obstacle course for the Slytherins. Perhaps my son and his friends would be properly motivated to train and compete in a Death Eater obstacle course if the winners received some sort of prize and the losers got the _cruciatus_ curse turned on them. That seems like sufficient motivation, does it not?

My plans for a non-lethal training ground for the next generation of Death Eaters were rudely disrupted by the appearance of a rag-tag group of wizards and witches who were apparently part of Dumbeldore's precious Order of the Phoenix, which I maintain frankly sounds like a cult.

I may have gotten into a muggle fistfight with my wife's escaped convict cousin. Not proud of that, by the way, but he started it. For the record: HE STARTED IT.

Sirius Black was heir to an ancient and noble house and a relative of my wife's. It's a damn shame we couldn't convince him to see the light so to speak and support our side. The Dark Lord really should have reconsidered that whole 'join us or die' recruitment model.

The situation deteriorated in a spectacular fashion and eventually both Dumbledore AND the Dark Lord showed up, which was when I wanted to say, "WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T YOU HAVE SHOWN UP EARLIER AND JUST GRABBED YOUR OWN DAMN PROPHECY!"

The prophecy was broken. Bellatrix shoved the last named Black heir through the Veil of Death. The Death Eaters fled, and yours truly was captured by the Ministry and arrested. Oh the indignity!

I sat in a Ministry holding cell whilst awaiting trial, but to be honest, I was not all THAT concerned. I had politicians in my pocket after all. Galleons were liberally passed about, and I figured it would be just fine. I mean, what we were they going to do? Send me to Azkaban?


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: The early chapters of this story came together quickly, but the reality is that the canon HP series isn't too kind to Lucius in books six and seven, which left me with a bit of a conundrum once I got past the break-in at the Department of Mysteries. How do you take Lucius's imprisonment, his punishment by the dark Lord, the loss of his wand, and all of the other awfulness he endured and make it humorous? I got creative, and I'm pretty happy with how the rest of the story turned out. I hope you enjoy it! As always, I welcome your feedback!

Elle

~oOo~

 _From chapter 4:_

 _I sat in a Ministry holding cell whilst awaiting trial, but to be honest, I was not all THAT concerned. I had politicians in my pocket after all. Galleons were liberally passed about, and I figured it would be just fine. I mean, what we were they going to do? Send me to Azkaban?_

~oOo~

Chapter 5

THEY SENT ME TO AZKABAN!

I cannot begin to describe my anger over the entire situation. First, had the Dark Lord gone with a less complicated plot, none of this would have happened. Second, if he'd let me take a team of Death Eaters who weren't insane, none of this would have happened. Third, if he was going to show up at the end and make some grand spectacle of himself, he could have just gotten his own damn prophecy and saved us all a lot of time and grief, and none of this would have happened.

I realise this makes me seem disloyal.

I don't really care.

Because they sent me to Azkaban.

ME.

A Malfoy.

The head of the most ancient and noble house of Malfoy.

In Azkaban.

I repeated this to myself for days on end, trying to make sense of it all.

I sunk into a pit of deep emotional despair. The whole 'soul-sucking demons hovering over me all the time' thing did not help either.

I was condemned. Locked away. Huddled in a dark, forgotten corner of the world, with my basic needs barely met. Oh sure, they provided enough food to keep me alive, but I didn't even get a fucking comb!

The dementors hovered.

All thoughts and joy were stripped from my mind.

It was horrific.

I wanted to die.

I was so convinced when they locked me away that it was only a matter of time before my Lord would free me from this bleak existence.

Hours bled into days. Days bled into weeks. And then months. I lost all hope. I waited for death. Surely death would offer me its sweet embrace sooner rather than later.

At long last my son and heir came to visit me. I nearly wept at the sight of him, and in despair at how I must look to him, a shriveled hulk of my former self.

He looked at me with such unwarranted contempt and said, "Jesus fucking Christ, father, you've only been here for five days."

He's always been such an ungrateful little bastard. I don't know if he's even mine.

My son - or rather the ungrateful little bastard I generally claim as my heir - was so angry with me. Like it was MY fault I got arrested or something.

Let me repeat, again, THIS WAS NOT MY FAULT.

Draco was furious with me. He paced about the room and ranted until I eventually stopped listening. I'm pretty sure he was complaining about Potter. As if the dementors weren't torture enough already.

My contact with the outside world was very limited during that dark time. Sporadically one of the guards would torture me by doing vile things like showing me _Witch Weekly_ 's list of 'most handsome wizards' and pointing out that I'm not on it. That combined with the lack of proper hair care products surely violates some sort of human rights law. Hello, Geneva Convention, anyone?

I eagerly anticipated letters from home from my darling wife. I was hoping for news about the Dark Lord, about his plans, about any word from my solicitors about an appeal, anything of importance.

" _Your peacocks are rather loud and unruly lately, particularly that female one."_

Oh for fuck's sake. First of all, a female is a peaHEN, not a peaCOCK, as I have told Narcissa over and over again. Second, how dare she call Her Majesty Princess Lucia Aphrodite SparkleLove 'loud and unruly'? My poor precious little bird is delicate and requires a gentle hand and a lot of attention. Just like me.

Instead of valuable information, I was subjected to a bitch session about my darling birds. Did she ever stop to think that maybe they were unruly and loud because they missed me? No, of course not.

Time became meaningless to me in that bleak place. The food was subpar. The lack of proper hair care products was criminal. And that whole soul-sucking demon thing was really problematic.

I tried to explain my suffering to Draco on the rare occasions when he visited, only for the whiny little shit to tell me, "I'm sorry father, but you have to have a soul for them to suck. I fail to see what the problem is here."

I was torn between wanting to throttle him for his impertinence and lack of sympathy for my plight and wanting to give him a high five for what was a legitimately vicious and sarcastic comeback. Maybe he's mine after all…

You've surely heard that whilst I was enduring my unjust incarceration, my son was marked by the Dark Lord. This was apparently punishment for my failure in the Department of Mysteries, which we have already established was NOT MY FAULT, but I did not realise that at the time.

Draco was rather distraught over the whole thing. He was literally the youngest marked Death Eater. Ever. Not even Regulus Black was marked on his 16th birthday. It was an _honour_. Draco should have been kissing the Dark Lord's feet for such a privilege! The Malfoys have always been recognised for our wealth, our influence, and our magical might, and the Dark Lord surely knew this.

As soon as I heard of my son's admission into the Dark Lord's circle of influence, I knelt on that cold stone floor and wept tears of joy that my Lord and Saviour saw value in my only son and heir, who I am pretty sure is mine. Then I prayed that Draco made it through the whole initiation without bitching about that scar-faced Potter brat and his mudblood, because really, since Draco went to Hogwarts, I've not had a single conversation with him that did not involve those two banes of my existence.

Regardless of whatever else I've said about my son, know that I was proud of him on his initiation. To be recognised by the Dark Lord at such a young age spoke volumes about my son and about my family's importance to him. I only wish I could have been there myself to witness it myself.

I was certain that it was only a matter of time before I was freed to retake my place at the Dark Lord's right hand, with my son and heir beside me. Life would be grand.

~oOo~

Life was not fucking grand.

It was so far from grand that I'm not even sure where to start.

I would really like to know at what point the Dark Lord decided that "kill Albus Dumbledore" is an appropriate first mission for a baby Death Eater.

First missions are supposed to be LITTLE things. Like ' _Crucio_ a mudblood student and then _obliviate_ him so he can't rat you out.' Or 'Set fire to that muggle building.'

Hell, 'Assassinate the Minister for Magic' would have been an easier task for Draco.

As I've said before, my son has a rather delicate constitution. He's not really a "bathe in the blood of my enemies" kind of person. Then again, Bellatrix IS that kind of person, and she's not really a paragon of rationality, now is she? Killing ANYONE would have been an absurdly difficult task for Draco.

But Albus Dumbledore?

The wizard who defeated Grindelwald?

I was flabbergasted when I found out. Part of me wanted to march right up to the Dark Lord and say, "Are you fucking insane?"

But I didn't.

First, because I KNOW he's fucking 'insane' - and her name is Bellatrix.

And second, I'd like to keep my head attached to my neck and my dick attached to my body, thank you very much.

This entire thing was utterly ridiculous. If the Dark Lord wanted Albus Dumbledore dead, then the Dark Lord needed to meet him on the field of battle and off him himself.

Why would you send a child to do something you yourself are seemingly afraid to do? This sort of monumental task would surely result in MY CHILD being arrested and imprisoned, assuming he even survived.

I wrote lengthy letters to Narcissa, asking this very thing.

At long last my beloved wife replied, and I gasped in horror at her message. You see, she believed that the Dark Lord assigned our son this task as MY punishment.

I WAS ALREADY ROTTING AWAY IN AZKABAN!

What more punishment must there be?

I did not want to believe it. I was part of the Dark Lord's inner circle, among his most trusted advisors. Why on earth would he want to PUNISH me beyond this bleak and meaningless existence I'd been reduced to in Azkaban?

I refused to believe it.

My Lord would not do this to my son and heir, the last of the Malfoy family. The Sacred 28, the pureblood families followed him because we believed in his glorious cause of ridding the world of filthy blood, to purify the magical world for the pureblood families. Sure, that may mean that a few people die in a war. Wars have casualties. But to assign the heir to a Sacred 28 family to a task that will surely result in his death? It made no sense.

I refused to believe it. I wrote letters to my dear friend, Severus Snape, demanding an explanation.

At long last Severus visited to tell me that 1. I was not his 'dear' friend because I wouldn't name him as godfather to my son because of his 'unfortunate filthy muggle heritage,' and 2. I routinely mocked what he thought was an eloquent speech to his potions students about how he could teach them to 'bottle fame and brew fortune.'

In my defense, my son is - as I have just stated - the last heir to a Sacred 28 family. He cannot have a half-blood for a godfather because it's just not DONE. Severus _knew_ this, and it's not like he even wanted to be Draco's godfather. His exact words to me, shortly before Narcissa gave birth were, "Don't you fucking dare name me godfather. Children are the absolute fucking WORST, and I want no responsibility for any of them."

Ironic, really, that he went on to teach. Although now that I give it proper consideration, it seems that his profession was perhaps largely responsible for his dour countenance and constant attempts to make everyone around him miserable.

How remarkable! It is amazing the insights I get when I think about someone other than myself! I mustn't do it too often, then.

As for the second item on his list of grievances, it was an absurdly poncy and pretentious speech, and Severus did not have the eloquence and good looks to pull it off. So _fine_ , I may have mocked him a few times about "sauteing excellence" or "flambéing financial success."

What? You would have done it too had you been in my shoes. Not that you'd BE in my shoes. It's not like you can afford them.

Severus regrettably confirmed for me that the Dark Lord was angry that I neglected to look for him and denied my loyalty to him. Which is just STUPID by the way. Had I stood up in court and announced my loyalty to him back in 1981, I'd have spent more than a decade rotting away in this Merlin-be-damned rock in the middle of the North Sea. Do you know what my hair and skin would look like then? _Do you?_

I did far more good for the Dark Lord being out of Azkaban and free to buy off politicians.

Severus was adamant though that I had been set up for failure, that I'd deliberately been assigned a team that would fuck up the whole mission, and that my son had been given a mission he was meant to fail.

It was a shock to my heart, to my very core to learn that the Dark Lord intended to 'liberate' me from Azkaban for one of two occasions: Albus Dumbledore's death, or Draco's.

Malfoys do not beg. Normally.

But I begged.

And Severus, that insufferable arse, let me do it before eventually caving to tell me he'd already taken an unbreakable vow to complete Draco's task, should he fail.

To the best of my knowledge, my son had never killed anyone. Like I said, baby Death Eaters start out small. You start with mayhem and work your way up to murder. But what my son lacks in experience, I felt he surely made up for in motivation and ambition. And "not being eaten by a giant fucking snake because I displeased the Dark Lord" is pretty damned good motivation. That's all I'm saying.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I could not tell you exactly how long I spent in Azkaban. As I've said, days ran together and time lost all meaning.

Eventually, I was liberated by the Dark Lord, which consisted of him blowing a giant hole into the wall of the building and tossing a broom my direction. I had not flown in months but was expected to fly through wind and rain in the middle of the fucking North Sea and not fall off. Without a wand, because my wife took possession of that when I was sent to prison.

I was in a pretty foul mood when I returned home, especially when I discovered that in my absence, the Dark Lord had made himself at home in Malfoy Manor, along with quite a few of the inner circle. I'm not sure where he was staying before, as we always met up elsewhere, but he apparently decided that using my family's ancestral home as his base of operations was a good idea.

This was not a good idea.

Let me explain.

Yes, it is true that Malfoy Manor has some of the oldest and most powerful protective wards imaginable, which makes it seem like a great place for an evil lair. However, you have to have access to them to actually get into the property, and that means that I had to go stand outside and manually add people to the wards one at a time.

Apparently this was learned the hard way whilst I was in prison. The Dark Lord summoned his Inner Circle to my home, and Rowle, Dolohov, and Selwyn all bounced off the wards and landed arse over teakettle in the dirt outside the front gate.

Severus kindly supplied me with a memory of this for viewing in a pensieve because he was apparently just inside the front gate when it happened. Severus, being the dear friend that he is, has long been able to come and go at my home.

After viewing the memory, I asked him why he didn't simply open the gate for them. If he had, they could have apparated right at the gate and walked through.

He blinked at me for a moment and then said, "Are you kidding me? I need SOME joy in my life. Those blithering idiots bouncing off the wards was the high-point of my entire month."

Before he walked out of the room, Severus added, "Also, I may have told Rowle that Viking helmets with horns were historically inaccurate."

I blinked at him in surprise for a moment before asking the obvious question: "Really?"

"Yes. Really. Few things bring me more joy than telling Thorfinn Rowle that he is incorrect regarding his own allegedly _noble_ heritage," Severus sneered before stalking from the room with a most impressive flourish and sweep of his robes. He really does have that "bat of the dungeons" impression down pat.

I made a note to myself after that: when this cruel war is over, find a hot witch for Severus to bang. Granted, I don't like Dolohov or Rowle either, but if watching another wizard fall over and then proving him wrong about something is the best thing you have going for you, that's just fucking sad.

Anyway, as head of the Malfoy Family, I'm the only one who can alter the wards, which apparently had something to do with my 'early' release from prison. In my absence, members of the inner circle who could not apparate in had to floo in from a floo connected to the manor - and there aren't many of those. Wormtail was eventually appointed to stand guard at the gate and let people in, but this took too long for the Dark Lord, who is very clearly an impatient wanker.

Once I added everyone, the Dark Lord then had the gall to come back to me and complain about it because some worthless piece of Death Eater filth who somehow scrounged his way into the inner circle came to the manor and disturbed him. So he wanted me to redo all the wards to give out a complex set of permissions for who could show up when and where they could apparate in.

It was worse than the fucking Seating Chart.

The Seating Chart, by the way, was also redone, because the Dark Lord was STILL pissed off at me over the whole not-looking-for-him/broken-prophecy-thing. He rearranged the entire chart to shame me by moving me next to Draco, who is rather low on the totem pole because he's practically still a child.

It's been over a year since that fiasco in the Department of Mysteries, and my Lord is STILL holding a grudge. He's worse than a teenage girl. Or Narcissa that time she found out I spilled a hair care potion on the ballgown she'd planned to wear to the annual Yule Ball we normally host. How was I supposed to know it would stain clothing? A dress is a minor sacrifice compared to my hair.

Where was I?

Oh. Right. The reasons the Dark Lord squatting in my house like a nose-less hobo was a bad idea.

Let me walk you through this: I was arrested for breaking into the Ministry of Magic and was accused of being a marked Death Eater. I'm pretty publicly known to be one of the "bad guys."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I am certain Arthur Weasley was drooling all over himself at the thought of being able to get back into my house for another bumbling and inept search.

According to Narcissa, right up until the fall of the Ministry, various contingents of Aurors and others traipsed through my family's home, in search of proof of my guilt or the guilt of others. Not that they found much. I pride myself on covering my tracks. Most of the time.

So it was not exactly smart for the Dark Lord to set up camp in the home of one of his known supporters, especially since at least half of his inner circle couldn't get through the damn wards on their own, AND the Ministry was apparently beating down the door trying to search the place. The Dark Lord then complained to me after my release from Azkaban because he had to reschedule or relocate meetings because of an Auror search of my home. How is that MY fault?

This complication was, of course, mitigated after the Dark Lord took over the Ministry and put a stop to those petty investigations of my home, but it was apparently inconvenient for him for a good year or so.

Plus from a strategic standpoint, it just made no sense. Staying at the home of a known supporter also makes it easier for the Light to know where to attack. Granted, I assume they were in a bit of disarray after Albus Dumpsterfire kicked the bucket, but surely SOMEONE in his precious Order of the Phoenix knew that they could take out a fair number of Death Eaters if they attacked Malfoy Manor.

I am getting ahead of myself though. Let me go back.

After I returned home to discover that Malfoy Manor had become a Death Eater Dorm, I had to listen to a lengthy complaint from Narcissa because Thorfinn-I'm-A-Viking-Rowle had apparently continued his obnoxious supposedly Viking habit of consuming a beverage and then immediately throwing his crystal goblet onto the floor yelling, "ANOTHER!" That he continued to do this after she repeatedly hexed him says a lot about how slow of a learner Rowle is.

For the record, you can fix broken glass with a simple spell, but my darling wife kept arguing, "It's just not the SAME, Lucius!" until I finally broke and said, "Then for Merlin's sake, conjure the bastard a set of stone goblets next time! Carve a few runes onto it and tell him it's an ancient Viking artefact. He failed ancient runes at Hogwarts, and he'll never know the difference."

She blinked at me for a few moments before smiling pleasantly and walking away. The stone goblets were on the table at the next Death Eater meeting. Rowle was an insufferable arse about the whole thing, but at least I didn't have to listen to Narcissa complain about her broken crystal. I'm pretty sure the runes Narcissa used spelled out just what Rowle could do with his supposed Viking heritage and where he could shove his goblets. I do rather love my wife at times.

Moving on to more pertinent matters, I learned that Severus had stepped in at the last minute and murdered Dumbledore. It's pretty cold to murder someone you've worked for for years, just strike him down in cold blood like that. I heartily approve.

Unfortunately, my son was _crucio_ 'd a few times over his hesitation to strike the killing blow against an unarmed old man. Where did I go wrong? Clearly my wife and I were too soft with him in his childhood. I told Narcissa it was all her fault. If Draco had gone to Durmstrang, he'd have been much better with unforgivable curses. My beloved wife looked at me blankly and said, "But darling, he'd be too far away from us. Look at all he would have missed!"

I looked around when she said that to see Rabastan Lestrange arguing with Pettigrew over whether a muggle would bounce if tossed from the roof of the Manor whilst Bellatrix stood off to one side licking _something_ from the tip of her wand.

Somehow, I don't think Draco would have missed much.

~oOo~

Speaking of Draco, my son was most aggrieved by his lot in life that summer, and I just don't understand why.

My son was part of the inner circle, and he failed to recognise this for the honor that it was. Draco was SIXTEEN, and he was part of the Dark Lord's inner circle. He should have been schlepping about the countryside torching homes and terrorising muggles, working his way up the ranks the way everyone else had to do. Instead he was at the table with the major players. Should the Dark Lord prove victorious, Draco could find himself as Minister for Magic by the time he's 30.

It's a _big deal_.

Except that my son was ungrateful and unhappy.

Okay, FINE, he was unhappy that he was tortured for his hesitation. Believe me - I am not happy he was tortured either, but if he'd done what he was supposed to do and just killed the old buzzard, he would have been rewarded, and it would have greatly improved our standing with the Dark Lord.

Despite our Lord's general unhappiness with me, Severus and I both successfully argued that he had created a task designed to kill my heir, but Draco survived and Dumbledore was dead, and let's just focus on the positive, here, m'kay? We were apparently persuasive enough that the Dark Lord opted to stop tormenting my son, since he did in fact survive a task designed to kill him, and Dumbledore is in fact dead.

Was Draco grateful for this intervention? OF COURSE NOT.

All summer long, all I heard from my son were complaints: "I don't WANT to kill anyone! Why didn't you tell me I'd be expected to kill someone?"

Um, I don't know, maybe because I thought it was fucking obvious? Revolutions tend to get rather messy at times.

"Why do I have to have this stupid mark?"

So you can show up when the Dark Lord or one of your comrades in arms needs you. I realise I was not here when you were marked, but pay attention, son.

"Why does the Dark Lord have to stay HERE?"

Good fucking question, son. Apparently because he lives to make us all miserable, I guess.

Draco was bitter about the coterie of Death Eaters who came in and out of the manor. Apparently it put a damper on his social life or something. He might have said something about Pansy Parkinson and the Greengrass girls not wanting to be eaten by a werewolf whilst visiting us, but to be honest, I'd poured myself another firewhiskey and quit listening by that point.

My wife came in shortly after Draco stomped off in a huff and complained that I was drinking. Alright fine, it was 9 am, but in some cultures firewhiskey is considered a breakfast food. I can't remember which, but I'm fairly certain I read that somewhere.

She stood there with her hands on her hips, looking supremely peeved at me.

"Lucius, don't you think you've had enough to drink?"

I studied the alcohol in my glass. It appeared to be swirling around all by itself, which was an indication that perhaps I had indeed had too much to drink, but I wasn't about to admit that to her.

"I'm just helping Draco, Narcissa," I said.

"How is YOU drinking helping Draco?" she asked with a frown.

"Because the more I drink, the less there is for Draco to drink." Frankly, this was stellar logic considering my inebriated state.

To my surprise, she seemed to think about it for a moment before replying, "Well. I suppose that does make sense. I shall go check on our son."

I'm pretty sure there were two of her in my field of vision when she left my study.

Speaking of my wife, I remain convinced that she must have spent months poisoning our son against me because he spent far too much time at her side, shooting me evil glares every time I walked into the room. And yet he somehow felt no need to object when his mother treated the Dark Lord and the the influx of Death Eaters - and one giant fucking snake - like a stream of important social occasions with VIP guests.

"Oh darling, what shall we serve for the dinner party Saturday night?"

It's not a dinner party, witch. It's a meeting of the Dark Lord's inner circle, and watching that snake eat someone isn't exactly appetising for the lot of us.

"Darling, which gown should I wear to the revel the Rosiers are hosting?"

Whichever gown best hides bloodstains, probably.

These events really had gone downhill in terms of depravity, and not in a good way. I'll take an orgy over a mass killing any day.

Anyway, I fail to see why Draco was so put out with ME when Narcissa was the one making him comb his bloody hair and put on freshly pressed robes so he'd 'look proper' before a meeting or a mission. As if some filthy muggle cares what you're wearing before you kill him.

Narcissa picked at Draco constantly, smoothing his hair and robes, doting on him. Damned woman! He was soft enough as it was. There was no need for her to baby him.

I had thought that the Dark Lord might order Draco to withdraw from Hogwarts and spend his seventh year of school on missions instead, but to my surprise, he suggested Draco go back and finish his education.

I believe the exact words used were, "Yesssss Draco, you musssst complete your education. Then perhapsss you will be lesssss of a disappointment than your father."

Like I said, the Dark Lord is worse than a fucking teenage girl, the way he holds a grudge.

My son was all too thrilled to go back to school, if only to get away from the insanity plaguing our house.

I had high hopes for his final year of school: Dumbledoofus was dead, and Severus was in charge of the school.

Severus, unfortunately, did not share my enthusiasm. He spent a long night getting pissed in my study as we finished off a rather large bottle of firewhiskey. You would think he'd be happy about his promotion, but apparently not.

"Do you have any idea what a fucking nightmare this is? DO YOU?" he slurred to me. "Minerva McGonagall is my deputy headmistress. She practically worshipped the quicksand Albus walked upon. And I fucking killed him. Do you know what this is going to be like for me?"

I couldn't help but feel bad for him. Minerva McGonagall is really fucking scary.

Scoff with disbelief all you want, but she is _terrifying_.

Even that mediocre fuckmuppet Wormtail is afraid of her, and he was one of her precious Gryffindors.

I remember writing to my father from Hogwarts as a first year to complain about the horrid transfiguration professor. He wrote back, "Minerva McGonagall was a classmate of mine. She's terrifying. Stay away from her."

It made quite an impression on my young self to discover a witch my father found frightening.

"Carry a bezoar with you at all times. She'll probably poison your food," I told Severus.

"The elves are bound to Hogwarts, and they can't harm the Headmaster."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about that. She'll probably do it herself. Gryffindor and all that. She'd consider it too Slytherin to let someone else do the dirty work."

"You aren't making me feel better."

"Keep an eye on your food. That's all I'm saying."

"I'm a bloody potions master! I'm not going to end up poisoned."

"And she's a bloody transfiguration mistress. She could transfigure a phial of poison into a spoon, and you wouldn't know it until you keel over dead in your soup," I pointed out.

Severus stared at me in mute horror, as if he'd never pondered the possibility.

"She'd probably consider it a great irony if she poisoned a potions master, especially if she used transfiguration to do it. Kind of a 'quill is mightier than the sword' sort of thing? She could also transfigure a phial of poison into a toothbrush as well. Best to keep your rooms warded and locked," I offered. "Don't forget about contact poisons. She could coat the inside of your cloak with something like that. Best keep an eye on your laundry too."

"Fucking hell, you can stop now!"

Severus looked even more miserable than he had before, and I have to admit that I felt bad for him then. Minerva really has hated us both for the longest, not even counting that whole 'Death Eater' thing.

She kept trying to dock points from me as a student to prevent me from becoming Head Boy, but my marks were impeccable, even if my father did have to pay off multiple members of the Board of Governors to cover up a few indiscretions. Really though, it's not MY fault if those Hufflepuff girls were gullible enough to think I was actually hosting a beauty pageant with a strip tease portion of the competition to select the next Mrs. Malfoy.

Severus probably would have done a bit better with McGonagall had he not gotten caught as a third year smoking muggle pot he'd sneaked into the castle. It didn't help that he was higher than a golden snitch when he got caught and called her 'Minnie Mouse' to her face.

The more my whiskey-addled mind thought about it, the more I decided that Minerva would likely find some way to make Severus's life miserable. After all, Dolores Umbridge did not exactly fare well at Hogwarts even before Potter's mudblood led her off to the centaurs.

"You need to fire her," I offered.

"I can't."

"Yes you can. You're the headmaster. What's left of the Board of Governors is terrified of the Dark Lord. They'll back you."

"Yes, well, the Dark Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has given me two of his inner circle as faculty for Hogwarts."

I wracked my brain, trying to think of who in the inner circle aside from Severus was remotely qualified to teach. I stared at him blankly.

"The Carrows," he finally said, tipping back the bottle and downing the equivalent of another shot.

"You are so fucked."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence."

"You're welcome. But you're right - you cannot fire Minerva if you're also saddled with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. You'll need every remotely competent teacher you've got."

"Obviously."

I don't quite recall much else after that conversation, other than general thoughts that Severus was well and truly fucked being saddled with both Minerva and the Carrows. I am fairly certain I had a lengthy philosophical debate with myself over whose lot in life was worse, mine or Severus's. Severus eventually started drunkenly mumbling something about a lily. I had no idea why he wanted flowers, but I am nothing if not an accommodating and generous host, so I had one of the elves lead him out to the garden where the asphodel is planted before stumbling into bed with my wife.

~oOo~

Giving credit where credit is due: Thank you to tumblr user Incorrect Lucissa Quotes for the bit about Lucius saying that him drinking means there's less for Draco to drink. Thank you to Dramione writer AkashaTheKitty for coming up with the lovely insult "mediocre f*ckmuppet."

Getting Lucius out of Azkaban was a relief, and I had a blast writing this chapter because you just know that he probably spent a lot of time after his escape wandering his house and wondering how it all went so wrong. As always, I welcome your feedback, and I look forward to reading what you think about Lucius's post-Azkaban experience!

Happy New Year!

Elle


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Any hope I had of my lot in life improving soon went straight to hell. To be fair, wizards do not believe in such trite, muggle notions as 'hell,' for how can we believe in a hell when we live it here on earth? At least, that was my thought process at the time, for my life well and truly became a hell.

Apparently no one had been able to get at Potter because of some magical love wards on his muggle relatives' house or some Dumbledore-esque nonsense like that, but once he turned 17, they would fall. Seems like poor planning on Dumble's part, but I digress. Severus told us of a plan the Order had concocted to move Potter to safety, and we were all going to intervene and, I don't know, DO something.

The Dark Lord, for reasons still unfathomable, was adamant that only HE could kill Harry Potter, so as a result, we were all flying about Surrey firing curses at a half dozen plus magical beings who were all polyjuiced as Harry fucking Potter. But because we couldn't actually HIT one of them for fear we'd hit THE Harry Potter and thus incur the Dark Lord's wrath, we were stuck firing upon various other wizards and witches. The reality, mind you, is that polyjuice allows anyone to take on anyone else's appearance. So Potter could have been masquerading as Alastor Moody or Remus Lupin or Kingsley Shacklebolt, or one of the innumerable Weasel pack. Anyone with half a brain would have used skilled Aurors and fighters as faux Potters and disguised Potter in some other way.

Hell, if I'd been in charge of that operation, I'd have sent all fake Potters into the sky that night whilst secreting the real Potter away in one of those horse-less, non-flying muggle carriages, polyjuiced as a muggle, until he was safely away from the house and could be apparated to another location. It's not like any of us would have noticed. Most of the Dark Lord's inner circle are so willing to slavishly do as they're told without question that it would not occur to them to truly apply Slytherin cunning.

In short, the entire attack was a grievous disaster.

I think we took out a few of the Order. It's hard to say. But the real trauma for me came after the fact. You see, the Dark Lord's wand did that strange thing where it connected with Potter's, and he was thus unable to wield it sufficiently to kill the brat. So he took mine.

I don't think you appreciate the gravity of this situation.

He _took_ my wand.

In front of all the other Death Eaters. Just… _demanded_ that I hand it over.

It was easily the most humiliating experience of my entire life, far worse than even the stay in Azkaban.

You do not just TAKE another wizard's wand. He might as well have cut off my arm. Or my dick. He stood there in MY home, in front the rest of the inner circle, and took my dick. Err, I mean, wand.

I was quietly enraged but knew enough to hold my tongue. I wasn't about to give the Dark Lord a reason to torture me because apparently he was STILL angry over the whole prophecy thing, which as we've already clearly establish was _not my fault_.

So let me recap: my home was turned into a Death Eater dormitory, my son was mad at me, the Dark Lord was still holding a grudge, and then he took my wand.

I cannot begin to describe how horribly this decreased my standing in the ranks of the inner circle. I was mocked heavily by Dolohov, Rowle, Yaxley, and the Lestranges. It was awful.

Until I figured out a few things.

First and foremost, if I had no wand, the Dark Lord was unable to send me out on missions because I was too much of a liability unarmed as I was. This, in turn, drastically decreased my chances of being killed in battle or of being captured and sent back to Azkaban. I admit I considered that a rather large plus. I had feared that perhaps he would send Draco in my stead, but as I've said he recognised that baby Death Eaters require greater education, and thus my son was sent back to school and was able to avoid the bulk of the fighting until the final battle.

Second, the Malfoy family is an ancient and noble house. Our ancestral home in Wiltshire has stood since the days of William the Conquerer. Generations upon generations of cunning, ambitious, brilliant wizards and witches have walked these halls. Which is to say, that my wand was not the only wand in the building.

Nowadays most people take on the rather sentimental notion that you should bury a wizard's wand with him. Hell, even Dumbledore was buried with his wand until the Dark Lord dug it up, but I'm getting ahead of myself. In many of the ancient and noble families, wands were kept. They were treasured heirlooms to be passed down from generation to generation.

The wand chooses the wizard, you know. That's basic wandlore. As such, it is rather rare for a wand to choose someone just because it was once owned by a member of that same family, however it does happen. It was an honor to be chosen by an ancestor's wand, unless of course it was an insane ancestor, in which case, that's probably a bad thing. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Bellatrix's wand once belonged to a Black ancestor who was burned at the stake after murdering an entire village of both muggles and magical folk in the 1500s. That probably should have been a sign to her parents…

Anyway, as soon as the Dark Lord wandered off to wreak havoc elsewhere, mercifully taking Bellatrix with him, I ventured into the Malfoy crypt beneath the manor to see if any of the family wands were a match for my magic. Obviously none were an ideal match or I would have already been using it, but by Nimue's grace, one was at least somewhat serviceable, and I found myself in possession of another wand.

Believe me, the six hours or so I had to do without were devastating, and not just because Dolohov, fucker that he is, kept shooting hexes my way, knowing I had not the means to block them.

However, I was not _supposed_ to have a wand, as I was still being 'punished' by the Dark Lord, so even when I did retrieve one, I had to hide its existence.

Do you have ANY concept of just how difficult this is? I am a wizard. I have known magic my entire life. I use it instinctively, at times without thought. Using a wand is as natural as _breathing._

I had to pretend I could not use magic at all, save for the odd bit of wandless magic I was publicly known to possess. That meant no charms on my hair. No flicking my wand quickly to smooth my robes.

Wormtail nearly caught me using the spare wand, and I had to pretend I was drunk and had no clue what he was talking about. It was not one of my finer moments. As soon as he turned his back, I hexed him and then obliviated him. Damn, that felt good.

Actually, now that I think about it, I might have actually been drunk that time. Hard to say. The days ran together in a haze of alcohol and absurdity.

However, that is not to imply that my time in the waning months of the war were an easy period of my life. They were not. I was constantly abused by the Dark Lord and by others in his inner circle. I was horrifically maligned for something that was not my fault. And because the Dark Lord was angry with me, he refused to listen to any of my suggestions about how to run the wizarding world now that he had control of the Ministry.

The next thing I know, Dolores Umbridge - she of the ball-shrinkingly hideous face - was running some sort of kangaroo court in the Ministry, targeting muggleborns. Look, I understanding hating muggleborns, but for fuck's sake, someone has to be around to bow and scrape before the purebloods. You can keep out new muggleborns if you want, but the ones already here, who have married proper wizards and witches and produced half-blood children...what are we supposed to do with them? Wholesale slaughter will just make the populace more likely to rise up against you. It's not exactly practical to take over the government just to sow the seeds of revolution in your people.

Umbridge lacks all subtlety. It is worth mentioning that despite all her claims to the contrary, she was NOT a Slytherin. A Slytherin - a good Slytherin like myself - would have instituted more subtle forms of discrimination designed to keep muggleborns in their rightful place, without inciting full-scale rebellion. Like a caste system. Extermination is so uncouth. Well, to be fair, a bit of murder is acceptable. Some might argue even necessary. You just can't kill EVERYONE.

I tried to tell the Dark Lord this. I believe my exact words were, "This is not going to have the effect she thinks it will."

I was tortured for my impertinence, but I would like the record to clearly state that I was _correct_.

I was also correct in my belief that the Dark Lord spent far too much time obsessing over and trying to locate the scar-faced Potter brat and his friends. It was an unnecessary distraction that limited his ability to effectively wipe out the resistance and actually govern.

See, this is the problem with small minds bent on revenge and amassing power. They fail to focus on the realities of governance. It's easy to rail against the powers that be and discredit people by starting rumours that Kingsley Shacklebolt is a muggleborn and was born in Kenya. It's much harder to actually HAVE the power and have to do something with it. Most of the inner circle did not grasp this concept. I know the Dark Lord failed to grasp it. It's not enough to thumb your nose at the opposition and declare yourself the winner. You have to keep the economy afloat. You have to pass a budget. You have to hire and fire people and pay bribes to the right people and keep the general populace happy enough that they'll ignore you and go about their lives, quietly accepting your devious schemes. It's boring as fuck most of the time and utterly unsatisfying to actually RUN a country. That's why I bribe politicians to get what I want and let them manage all the pesky details and daily drudgery. Malfoys don't do drudgery.

I became so thoroughly frustrated with the Dark Lord's unwillingness to listen to reason or to appoint anyone who had the slightest ability to govern that I drowned my frustration in firewhiskey. I don't remember much of anything for large blocks of time, which now that I consider it is probably for the best.

One distinct memory I do have however is of the day Rabastan Lestrange died. He and Wormtail still routinely engaged in what they called 'philosophical discussions' like whether a muggle would bounce if thrown from the roof of my family's ancestral home or where you should slice open a wizard to make him bleed to death the fastest. Rabastan in particular resented the time he'd spent in Azkaban whilst I'd been left free to live my life and fuck my way through Europe's most attractive witches, and he'd taken advantage of my neutered state to attack me whenever he could. I did not dare fight back with my lackluster wand, for I had no desire to give the Dark Lord a reason to take it from me. I had to avoid Lestrange as much as possible because frankly, his hexes hurt, and I have delicate skin.

Narcissa had begun to complain about Rabastan as well. Apparently he wrecked part of her flower garden, which, let's be fair, she could repair with magic since she still had a wand. However, it was the rude commentary Rabastan directed her way that sorely tried my patience. I will bow and scrape and pretend to be humble for the Dark Lord's benefit - and to be fair I was doing what I could to get back in his good graces. However, I will not be meek in the face of a deranged wizard threatening to harm my darling and mostly sane wife. Oh sure, I had my fair share of mistresses before my unfortunate incarceration, but Narcissa is mine, and Malfoys do not tolerate others violating that which belongs to us. I will not repeat the vile commentary he leveled at Narcissa, but suffice it to say that she feared for her safety.

Every wizard has a breaking point, and one night, I reached mine. I discovered two important things that night: first, Rabastan Lestrange was the one wrecking Narcissa's flowers by pissing off the side of the roof into her garden, just because he could, because he is an uncouth piece of inbred pureblood trash. And second, whilst I may not know the answer to whether or not a muggle would bounce if thrown from the roof, I can personally attest that a pureblood arse of a wizard thrown from the roof of Malfoy Manor does not, in fact, bounce when he hits the ground. Not really anyway. It's more of 'splat' with a bit of a roll downhill. The fact that he had his dick out though might have affected his aerodynamics.

I bear no regret for my actions. Pureblood wives are delicate flowers and are to be treated with a certain level of gentility and care. If a wizard threatens to harm your witch, sometimes difficult decisions must be made. It was worth it.

~oOo~

A few weeks later, I was no longer sure if killing Rabastan was worth it.

Narcissa, despite being his intended victim, was saddened by his death because she was convinced that Bellatrix was somehow grieving her dead brother-in-law.

As if.

Bellatrix was too busy fucking the noseless monstrosity that was the Dark Lord to even really notice.

Still, Narcissa hovered around me, nattering about with comments like, "We should do something nice for Bellatrix. She needs us right now."

I told her I thought a howler would be sufficient.

Narcissa made me sleep in a guest room for _two days_ after that. I MURDERED for you, witch! No good deed goes unpunished apparently.

In the aftermath of Rabastan's death, my wife, through some tortured and utterly inexplicable logic, decided that what Bellatrix really needed was to have a child. When she first made this suggestion, I stared at her for a very long time, silently debating whether or not she'd been dropped on her head in infancy.

Bellatrix Black Lestrange is the absolute last witch who should ever have a child. She thinks the _cruciatus_ curse is an effective method of disciplining small children. Literally. I pointed this out to Narcissa and reminded her that we once dressed Dobby up as baby Draco and let Bellatrix play with him, in the interest of keeping our infant son alive and intact. Bellatrix 'accidentally' dropped him over the stair railing on the third floor and onto the parquet floors below when the elf tried to get away from her.

And yet here was my lovely wife saying things like, "Oh darling, I don't think it's too late for Bella and Roddy. Wouldn't they make the most charming little one?"

No, no they would not. Not everyone should reproduce. Wizards and witches who are certifiable - like Bellatrix - absolutely should not. Malfoys, on the other hand, are known for our brilliance and our good looks, and we really should be sharing that with future generations.

Anyway, I seriously doubted whether Rodolphus had banged his wife at any time after their arrest and incarceration in Azkaban. Once they took up residence in my home, he seemed overly interested in Marcus Flint, a junior Death Eater a few years Draco's senior, who bore more than a passing resemblance to a mountain troll, but then I suppose there's no accounting for some people's tastes. If anyone got Bellatrix up the duff - Merlin but that's a horrifying thought - it would have been the Dark Lord himself.

This train of thought led to all manner of equally disturbing thoughts like, "Is it possible to father a child after you carve up your soul like a muggle Christmas ham?" and "Is the Dark Lord's lack of a nose the sort of thing that could be passed down to a child?" I know some believe that beauty isn't everything - an absurd notion to be sure - but even those people must certainly prefer children with noses. My son and heir may be a bit on the soft side, but at least he's pretty.

~oOo~

I knew matters would come to a head at some point, and they finally did at Eostre, or Easter as that muggle-lover Dumbledead insisted on calling the school's spring break. Draco was at home, and for once, I did not have to listen to a litany of complaints about that scar-faced Potter brat and his mudblood, since they were not in school. I considered this a plus, really, and thus I was able to tune out most of what he was saying. Something about the Carrows and Snape and how awful his life was. Join the club, son. Life is misery.

One particularly unfortunate day, a miscreant group of wizards - and one disgusting werewolf - known as Snatchers appeared at my home with a small cadre of prisoners.

I should add here that this was yet another humiliation leveled at me. The Dark Lord let Snatchers bring prisoners to my home, to be held in my dungeons until they could be transferred elsewhere. Most came and went fairly quickly, but for reasons I still do not fully understand, two Hogwarts students and a wand maker were held captive in my dungeon for quite some time. Seems like overkill, but whatever. I gave serious thought to asking that Ollivander bloke to make me a new wand, but he did not exactly have the proper tools at his disposal.

Anyway, they brought in three truly hideous looking beings - all fairly young and filthy. There was one I thought was a redhead underneath the dirt. There was a girl with tangled hair Greyback was literally drooling on, the poor thing. At the risk of sounding overly sympathetic to captives and enemies of the Dark Lord, let me just say that yes, I pitied the girl in that moment because Greyback is a repulsive creature who derives pleasure from literally eating wizards and witches. I would have pitied any witch drooled on by that werewolf. Except perhaps for Umbridge.

And then there was the dark-haired boy with the distorted face. Scabior and Bellatrix were arguing over what was wrong with his face, and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. Someone had clearly hit him with a stinging jinx of some kind. Use some fucking common sense!

My lovely wife was more concerned about them tracking dirt onto her pristine floors than she was over their actual identity, but given their possible youthfulness, she called in our son whilst I nursed another firewhiskey and watched this stupidity unfold.

Draco eyed the motley crew, and I wanted to slap him for his timidity. He at least had a wand that functioned properly! Buck up and be a man, son! Narcissa and Bellatrix asked Draco to identify the vagabonds in our midst, and Draco froze. I watched him, watched as Bellatrix danced about, arguing with herself over whether or not the Snatcher had found anyone of importance.

There was a mark on the dark-haired boy's face, and it hit me then with a shocking clarity: there was a good chance I had the Boy Who Refused To Die in MY home. I could summon the Dark Lord, hand him over, and then maybe, FINALLY, he'd give back my wand and stop punishing my family!

In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I will admit that I pulled Draco aside to remind him that all he had to do was confirm Potter's identity, and all would be forgiven, and the Malfoys restored to their proper place in our world. Too much firewhiskey must have rendered me temporarily forgetful, for in that moment, all I could think about was my family's safety and prestige, and I had conveniently forgotten all about my son's peculiar obsession with the scar-faced Potter brat and his mudblood.

Draco, however, had not forgotten, and he refused to identify them. He went on some absurd song and dance about how it had been so long since he'd seen any of them and he could not be certain it the boy was Harry Potter. Bull-fucking-shit. He knew who they were. Yes, I am certain of it. You know how I know this? Because he has their fucking pictures plastered to his bedroom wall. Oh, he tries to hide it with glamour and notice-me-not charms, but they're there. I've seen them. It's shameful, truly. A whole fucking wall of photos cut out of the _Daily Prophet_ and the Hogwarts yearbooks. He might as well just go ahead and draw pink hearts around their pictures because he was halfway there already. I ask myself continuously: where did I go wrong with him?

I was so frustrated with Draco that day I nearly pulled out my illegal wand and hexed the little shite.

Hell, he even refused to identify the Weasley brat and the mudblood! Now, the mudblood, fine, given his obsession, I could see him deliberately ignoring her presence and not giving away her identity, but the _Weasley_? It's a WEASLEY! Draco HATES them, all of them. You could have knocked me over with one of the feathers from my precious dear little peacocks when he refused to give up the Weasley.

Now, I have observed that in my experience, anything involving Harry fucking Potter turns chaotic very quickly. I do not know why this is. It defies explanation, although I will add that I was also heavily inebriated so it's possible some details have blurred together or are simply missing altogether. Regardless, the whole situation blew up in our faces.

I was prepared to summon the Dark Lord, when Bellatrix noticed that someone was toting a giant sword that apparently had been in possession of the trio. The two boys were dragged off to the dungeons. Bellatrix tortured the mudblood chit, who screamed like a banshee whilst proclaiming her innocence. I had to use my ill-gotten wand to subtly cast the _imperius_ curse on my own son to keep him from losing his mind and attacking his aunt, who is insane enough she'd probably snap and kill us all. Somehow Potter and the Weasel brat got out of the dungeons and came back with that worthless, sniveling, bug-eyed waste of skin that used to be my elf, and in one fell swoop managed to free the mudblood AND get away with both Draco's wand and Bellatrix's.

We were fucked.

~oOo~

The Dark Lord was not happy with any of us. He demanded to know why I had not stopped the trio from fleeing the manor. Apparently, "Because you took my wand and wouldn't give it back," was not the answer he wanted.

I was tortured for my impertinence and for my failure. I managed to send Draco back to school before the Dark Lord arrived, thus sparing him from punishment. It was one of the single most selfless things I've ever done. Most of the time I think he's worth it.

Bellatrix and I were not so fortunate, and the Dark Lord was not exactly merciful.

In between bouts of the _cruciatus_ curse, I managed to gasp out, "Yes, my Lord, but Bellatrix lost her wand to a _mudblood_!"

Yes, it felt like tattling. Hell, it WAS tattling, but she deserved it for trying to blame me for the whole debacle.

He then turned his wand on Bellatrix and hit her with the _cruciatus_ curse as well. When he paused and she stopped screaming for a moment, I added, "She was adamant about torturing the mudblood before we summoned you. _I_ wanted to call you straight away."

In between screams of pain, Bellatrix groveled and insisted that she had not wanted to waste the Dark Lord's precious time if they were mistaken about the identity of the prisoners. Bullshit. She saw an opportunity to torture and took it. Normally I'd admire that kind of sadistic impulse, but I was happy to blame her on this occasion.

I am not proud of that dark day and the groveling I did, and it was obvious neither was the Dark Lord. It less resembled a meeting with his top officers and felt more like two toddlers squabbling before a disapproving parent. If, you know, your father doles out torture as discipline. Now that I consider it, I suppose there is a role for torture in child-rearing. Not too much of it mind you, and certainly not the _cruciatus_ , for you do not want your offspring to end up like Bellatrix. I opted against torture for my heir, and you see where it got me, don't you? Draco was livid that I'd held him under the _imperius_ curse and was thrilled to return to school if only to get away from all of us, which then in turn angered Narcissa, who flushed all of my hair potions in a blind rage because her precious baby boy was angry with us. I sent him away to keep him SAFE. Merlin's beard, no one appreciates anything I do for them!

If I thought the Dark Lord was angry about Potter's escape, it was nothing to how he reacted after the miscreant trio broke into Gringott's and escaped on a dragon. To be rather blunt, it's nothing short of miraculous that Bellatrix survived that. I had to wonder if perhaps the Dark Lord actually had some emotional attachment to my insane sister-in-law because frankly, he's killed people for far less. I did not ponder this too long though because 1. That's a really disturbing mental path to wander down, and 2. It was drowned out by the thought that FINALLY someone else was getting blamed for something!

I might have also egged the Dark Lord on a bit there, pointing out to him that had Bellatrix not worked herself into such a bloody state over her vault in front of Potter's mudblood, they would not have known to look for a horcrux there. It was one of the few times the Dark Lord listened to me, and I was grateful for that. It did not get me out of the proverbial dog house, mind you, but it was at least a temporary reprieve.

The most blessed event happened after that: the Dark Lord left my home and took Bellatrix and most of their entourage with him. I know not where they went, nor did I ask, but they left and for a few days I finally had some fucking peace and quiet. It was glorious. I stopped drinking long enough to sober up, which was clearly a mistake, because before I knew it, we were being summoned to the Forbidden Forest because the Dark Lord had decided it was time to attack Hogwarts.

~oOo~

Credit for the exchange between Lucius and Narcissa in which he tells her "a howler should be sufficient" goes to tumblr user Incorrect Lucissa quotes, who graciously allowed me to use it.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Ah the Battle of Hogwarts. What can I say about that…Obviously it did not go as the Dark Lord intended, but I suppose I am getting ahead of myself.

The Battle of Hogwarts was a colossal mistake. Let us consider this rationally: Hogwarts is the sole magical school in Britain. It's filled with magical children, children who are literally the future of our admittedly small world. _Maybe_ , just maybe, having a epic battle there is a really fucking bad idea. Battles tend to have casualties, and accidentally slaughtering a bunch of children in battle isn't really the sort of PR you want attached to your side, regardless of the outcome.

If you destroy the school, what are you supposed to do then? Let's say you blow Hogwarts up, and you win a decisive victory. You've just alienated _every_ wizard or witch whose precious spawn was at the school and was harmed or killed in battle, AND you also alienate every other parent who now has to figure out how to educate their kid until the school can reopen. Not to mention all the sappy, emotional twits who will suddenly be nostalgic about their own childhoods if you blow up the school.

You've just given the rest of the wizarding world plenty of reasons to hate you, and let's face it, the Dark Lord had already given them quite a few reasons by that point in time.

When Narcissa and I arrived in the Forbidden Forest, I was mostly sober, and the Dark Lord was practically foaming at the mouth as he ranted about a cave and a necklace, and I honestly had trouble following along at the time, but the gist of it was that Harry Potter was apparently at Hogwarts, the Dark Lord had assembled an army of sorts, and he was prepared to attack. Now, at this point, I was still in the inner circle, even though I supposedly had no wand and was therefore not much use to anyone, and in all of our recent meetings there had been no talk of an epic battle to end it all. At least, I don't think there was. I was drinking pretty heavily at the time. One tends to need a lot of alcohol to cope with watching Nagini eat people alive.

Despite his many faults, Draco is my son, my only son, and I certainly did not want him to be in the midst of an all-out battle. Neither, clearly by the visible discomfort on many faces, did any of the other Death Eaters who had children or other relatives at the school, but when the Dark Lord was in a foul mood it was not wise to question him.

The Dark Lord made a big show of offering benevolence to the students and others sheltered within the school if they'd just give over Potter. Perhaps it was meant to appease the coterie of Death Eater parents, I don't know, but I knew it wouldn't work. Potter has a martyr complex, but he's not THAT stupid. There was a lot of firing on the school's wards, destruction of property, death, despair, and all of that. Predictably, the Gryffindor alumni in our army did not seem to grasp that they were being in sent in first as wand fodder. I swear on all that is sacred and magical, I heard some idiot yell, "The first one to the castle loses!" as he charged forward.

Narcissa was with me and naturally, she was concerned about our son. She was wandless as well, having given her wand to Draco after Potter stole his in that unfortunate incident at our home. She wanted to ditch the Dark Lord and go in search of Draco and kept tugging at my robes, trying to get my attention as she hissed things at me like, "Can't you just go GET Draco? Why are we wasting our time just standing here?"

I kept putting her off because I thought, 'any moment now, we'll invade the castle,' and then I figured we could slip away to retrieve Draco, but for some reason the Dark Lord kept stalling as he wandered about the Hogwarts ground whilst various divisions of his army attacked the castle. At last, unwilling to listen to Narcissa continue her incessant whining - a sound that was easily drowned out by her sister's own whining because there'd not yet been enough bloodshed for her taste - I went in search of the Dark Lord to volunteer to lead a division into the castle to find Draco, I mean, Harry Potter. I found him in the boathouse with that accursed snake, and alas, he saw through my ruse and told me to leave him alone and send Severus to him instead.

I was rather put out by this. Oh sure, Severus was the headmaster and knew the castle better than I did, but it still chafed that he wanted Severus and not me. Despite ages of groveling, the Dark Lord was still displeased with me.

Now, I had no idea at the time that the Dark Lord intended to kill Severus over his perceived mastery of the famed Elder Wand. I don't know if Severus knew. Had I known that was the last time I would see my friend alive, I would have done things differently. I mean, it's not like I would have sacrificed myself in his place or disarmed him to transfer allegiance to myself, I mean, I have a lot to live for. I'm just saying.

But I do think Severus Snape deserved better. By that point I'd already thought of at least a half dozen comely witches I could arrange for him to enjoy after the school term wrapped because by Merlin and Nimue, that poor man needed to get laid. I firmly believe he would have been a nicer, happier wizard had he gotten some action now and then.

I have been asked by some if I knew about Severus's apparent love for the Potter brat's mother, and the answer is no, I did not. Severus could not help being born a half-blood, and I bore him no ill will for that, but to fall in love with a mudblood? Totally unacceptable. I was raised to believe that it was best to not sully yourself with such filth, but if you just absolutely had to roll around in the mud, you were to use them solely to satisfy your more prurient urges. To consider loving one? It just wasn't _done_ , not by my family.

So no, he did not confide in me in that regard, but if he had, I would have advised him to get over it. You can only blame yourself for so long, and it's not like he could bring her back. Had the Dark Lord been successful in offing the Potter brat back in 1981 but somehow spared Lily Potter, it's not like she ever would have forgiven Severus for the murders of her husband or her child. Gryffindors do so love to hold a grudge, after all.

Look, I don't want to wax too poetic here or get too philosophical because frankly, that's not the purpose of all of this. Severus was a miserable bastard most of the time, but he was not a bad sort, and I would have said that even before I knew the extent of his secretive missions for Albus-should-have-been-in-Slytherin-Dumbledore. Severus was a brilliant man and was exceptionally good at unnerving Bellatrix, and I can respect any wizard who can do _that_.

He also left the bulk of his worldly goods to my family, which wasn't that much of a surprise as he had no heirs of his own. What was surprising was that he held patents to a number of very lucrative potions. The man was sitting on a small fortune, which again left me perplexed by the choices he made in his life. Why would you teach a bunch of dunderheads when you can afford to putter about your personal potions lab and do research? Furthermore, if he had that many Galleons, why hadn't he put it to good use and gotten himself some shampoo, a good facial moisturizer, and a witch to screw? Severus Snape may not have been the handsomest wizard to ever walk the halls of Hogwarts (that would be me, thank you very much), but he had the whole 'bad boy Death Eater' thing going for him, the spy thing to capitalise on, a penetrating gaze, and a rather dulcet voice. Had he taken more care with his appearance and thrown his Galleons about more, he needn't have spent his final years alone and miserable out of some mistaken sense of guilt.

Again, I am getting ahead of myself.

Let me skip over some of the unimportant details and get to _that_ moment in the Forbidden Forest. Yes, you know the one. After skirmishes around the grounds, the Dark Lord retreated to the forest and gave the Light an hour to send Potter to him. I had no idea during this time whether my son was alive or dead, although I hoped that he had enough of a sense of self-preservation to stay out of harm's way.

Potter came to the forest alone, and it was the most damned anti-climactic thing I have ever seen. The brat just walked up all awkward, stared at us all for a moment, the the Dark Lord cast an _avada kedavra_ , and Potter went down.

On the one hand, I had to admit that the Dark Lord apparently learned his lesson about not giving Potter another chance and making a big dramatic show of dueling. I felt somewhat vindicated by that, given what happened in the graveyard a few years prior, but at the same time, this was unexpected. We all stood about in silence, uncomfortably glancing at each other as if to say, "Is that it? Really?"

I don't know why the Dark Lord sent Narcissa to check on Potter. Maybe he feared Potter would suddenly rise up and kill her and this was meant to be yet another punishment for me. Or perhaps the Dark Lord was too afraid or too lazy to do it himself. In any affair, I watched Narcissa make her way to the boy and bend down to check on him. The Dark Lord was positively gleeful when my wife uttered one word, "Dead."

Now, of course, everyone knows that Potter was not actually dead and that my darling wife lied about this and used the opportunity to ask if Draco was still alive. Mercifully my son was still alive, or at least had been the last time Potter had seen him. I'm not sure what she would have done had Potter told her otherwise.

The Dark Lord rallied his troops and prepared to invade the castle, triumphantly toting Potter's body around to show to the Light as a means to induce a surrender. As this was happening, I noticed that my wife looked oddly nervous. Nervous like that time she had to tell me she left the gate open and a wild manticore ate one of my precious peacocks.

I pulled her aside to discreetly ask her what was wrong, and that was when she looked at me guiltily and confessed in a surprising nonchalant whisper, "He's not really dead."

I recall staring at her, trying to comprehend the words she'd just uttered.

Not dead. Not. _dead_.

"Did you... _LIE_?" I whispered back in horror, already knowing the answer.

She lied to the Dark Lord.

Let me restate this: she LIED to the _Dark Lord_.

To his face.

About Harry Potter being dead.

Lied to the wizard who was perhaps the most skilled legilimens of a generation.

In retrospect, I must add this to the list of reasons why the Dark Lord was a lousy dictator. He trusted the wrong people, never realising that he lost Severus's true loyalty the day he killed the Potter brat's mother, and never realising that my beautiful spoiled wife, she of society teas and galas, she who could ramble inanely about the latest fashion in formal robes, would lie to him in what would turn out to be one of the battle's most critical moments. His motto should have been 'trust no one,' but I suppose he was so caught up in Potter's presumed death that he never bothered to slip into Narcissa's mind.

At the time, however, all I could think was, "Merlin-fucking-damnit, woman! You're going to get us all killed! Have you lost your bloody mind?"

I'm pretty sure all that came out of my mouth next was a hissed, _"What the fuck are you doing?"_

To which my darling wife glared at me with a look that sent shivers down my spine - and was a tiny bit arousing if I must be entirely honest - and shushed me. It was another one of those moments I was reminded that I married Bellatrix Lestrange's baby sister. Witches from the most Ancient and Noble House of Black are _scary_.

I was fairly convinced my wife had just signed our death warrants with her lie, for how else would the Dark Lord react when he learned of her deceit? We had no choice but to participate in his gruesome black parade through the gates of Hogwarts with that moronic half-giant pathetic excuse of a professor toting Potter's limp body like a sack of Hippogriff food.

I suppose I can gloss over a lot of what happened after that: the Dark Lord engaged in a lot of smug grandstanding, some Gryffindor kid sliced the head off the Dark Lord's snake with a giant fucking sword, and then Potter 'miraculously' leapt from the giant's arms, brandishing my son's wand, prepared to fight.

It was at this point that I thought it was clearly in my best interests to get to Draco and get Narcissa out of sight from a very angry Dark Lord. Slytherins are nothing if not concerned with self-preservation, and I was fairly certain the whole battle was about to go tits up. As we searched for our son, I will admit that I might have used my secret wand to off a few people I disliked, on both sides. In the chaos of battle, it's so hard to tell who is who, you know? Deaths due to friendly fire are such an unfortunate turn of events, are they not? Or at least that's the story I told later to other Death Eaters, whilst also convincingly telling the Aurors that _of course_ I was on their side all along and was trying rid the world of dangerous wizards. What? It's not like anyone was ever going to miss Antonin Dolohov or Thorfinn-I'm-a-Viking-Rowle.

Eventually we found Draco. His hair was mussed, his clothing singed, and his face tinged with soot, but he was alive, uninjured, and thankfully still in possession of Narcissa's wand, apparently having been unable to get his own back from Potter. Narcissa thought it best to leave once we had Draco safely by our side, but our son did not want to leave. I suppose he was correct - we probably needed to at least witness the end of the battle to figure out just how bad our situation would be afterward. I knew I needed to plot and plan.

We ended up in the Great Hall, or what was left of it, watching as bodies were levitated in. I might have pilfered a handful of wands off of some of the dead. It wasn't like they were going to use them, and Narcissa really did need a functioning wand. I spent the remainder of the battle mentally debating our options. If the Dark Lord won, he was apt to kill Narcissa, and possibly my son and me along with her. I thought perhaps we might be able to flee Britain altogether and lay low in France, but then, that damned dark mark on my arm and Draco's would make it hard to run or hide from the Dark Lord forever.

I found myself at that point hoping that Potter could somehow win. What a peculiar situation to find oneself in! It was most uncomfortable to think that perhaps my salvation would come with the defeat of my Lord and Savior at the hands of an obnoxiously self-righteous Gryffindor brat with bad hair and a martyr complex.

You know how the rest of it went: Potter defeated the Dark Lord with an _expelliarmus_.

A second-year spell.

I just can't even.

To this day, I am so deeply ashamed by his failure. A motherfucking _expelliarmus_.

All things considered, the outcome of the battle was not the worst it could have been. Had the Dark Lord returned with an intact mind and body, had he not insisted on holding a grudge like a teenage girl and blaming me for things that were clearly not my fault, perhaps the outcome could have been different.

Bellatrix was killed in battle. I can't say that I'm sorry about that because frankly, I doubt any effort at rehabilitation would have been successful. It was painfully clear to anyone with half a brain and a modicum of sanity that she was batshit crazy. Unfortunately my wife did not share my brain or my sanity because she sobbed hysterically over her sister's death until I patted her head sympathetically and said, "There, there. You know she would not have wanted to go on without the Dark Lord."

Narcissa wiped at her eyes and sniffled before saying, "Yes, you are right of course. She and Roddy both would have been so distraught and would not have wanted to go on without each other."

I had to resist the urge to sigh and roll my eyes. Rodolphus had shared his wife's devotion to the Dark Lord, and some measure of her insanity, but that was about it. Rodolphus had been killed in battle as well - really, I must hand it to the Light because I hadn't thought them capable of casting so many fatal curses - but had he survived, I can't imagine he would have been pleased to carry on as a cuckold, bound for life to that hot mess that was his wife. Having been in Azkaban myself, I can safely say that death would be preferable to going back there, so I suppose it was for the best that Rodolphus died, even though it meant that the Lestrange line was left without an heir.

Following the battle the victorious Light would not permit us to leave the castle, so we ended up bunking in the Slytherin dorms overnight, and indeed for several nights as what was left of the Aurors and the Cult of the Phoenix tried to sort everyone and everything out. Being underground as they were, the Slytherin dorms were undamaged by the fighting, which I suppose is proof that Salazar Slytherin was a better strategist than his fellow school founders.

It is a testament to the level of chaos and confusion involved after the battle that we were not immediately carted off to Azkaban and conveniently 'forgotten' there. I knew I would have to put together a plan very quickly to ensure that my family remained out of harm's way, and I had a sneaking suspicion that another claim of "But I was under the _imperius_ curse!" wasn't exactly going to cut it this time.

Little did I know at the time, but Fate was about to intervene in a most unexpected way.

~oOo~

 _The exchange between Lucius and Narcissa about her lying to the Dark Lord was inspired by a similar cartoon sketch by tumblr/DeviantArt user Makani._

 _Alas my dear readers, we have just one more chapter to go in the twisted saga of "The Harry Potter Books from Lucius Malfoy's Long-Suffering, Melodramatic, Over-the-Top Point-of-View."_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Those few days in what was left of Hogwarts passed slowly. Draco disappeared for large periods of time, telling us that he was going to help brew potions to treat the injured. Normally I would not condone such plebeian activity, but at that point, we needed all the good publicity we could get.

The Aurors allowed parents who had not fought in the battle to claim their children, and I'd hoped to slip my family from the castle during that time. Alas, the Light was better organised than I'd given them credit for. I have to hand it to Minerva McGonagall - the old bat was damned good at running the school. It's a pity Dumbledead didn't retire earlier and let her take over.

We tried summoning one of our remaining house elves, but the creature was unable to get through the new warding. It was not as bad as being housed in Azkaban, but it was still primitive accommodations. On day three, I had to resort to using off-brand hair care products stolen from the 7th year girls' dormitory. Totally unacceptable.

Unable to sleep that night, I got up to check on my son and found him missing. Concerned about his well-being, I wandered from the dorms in search of Draco. I doubted he'd gone far, but Narcissa had been rather clingy since we'd found him, and I figured I should track him down. After all, when your wife successfully lies to the greatest legilimens of a generation, it induces a certain level of fear in a man. Fear and arousal, if I'm being honest, but Narcissa was in no mood to indulge me that night, unfortunately, or I would have remained in bed with her.

After wandering for some time, I did eventually find Draco, although I wish I had not, for what I witnessed will forever be burned into my memory, haunting me to the end of my days.

My son was not alone in that deserted classroom.

He was with that scar-faced Potter brat.

And his mudblood.

And they were not wearing clothes.

Years earlier I'd pondered what would be worse: my son being gay for Potter or my son cavorting with a mudblood. I can now say with all sincerity that it never once crossed my mind that he might actually manage to involve himself with _both_ of them. At the same time.

I did not know how it happened, or why it happened, but there it was, in front of me. Burning my eyes. Scarring my soul for life.

My son. My _heir_ , the heir to a thousand years of sacred, pureblood history, entwined with a half-blood wizard and a mudblood witch.

I wanted to scream to the universe, "WHY? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?"

Seriously, had I not suffered enough?

So many thoughts went through my head in those horrific moments. You have heard, I am certain, that time seems to stand still or move slowly in the midst of some sort of horrible accident? That was my experience.

My first instinct was to interfere, to grab my ancestor's wand and curse that filth away from my son. Had it been anyone other than Potter, I surely would have done just that. But when you watch a 17-year-old defeat the darkest wizard since Grindelwald with just an _expelliarmus_ , one tends to think twice before raising a wand against him. Again, Slytherins are all about self-preservation, and I would have been at a deficit already, working with a wand that was a relatively poor fit for me.

Later, after I had time to really consider all of the paths I could have taken that night, I recognised that it was also for the best that I did not attack my son's ahem, _paramours_. After all, the mudblood was still using Bellatrix's wand, stolen from her during their escape from Malfoy Manor. If the wand chooses the wizard, I'm not sure what it says about Hermione Granger that she successfully used Bellatrix Lestrange's wand in battle.

Anyway, I found myself in the exceptionally uncomfortable position of either skulking away and trusting that my son could safely return to the Slytherin dorms on his own or standing there and waiting for them to _finish_. To this day, I could not explain why, but in that moment, I chose to stay put. I mean, let's be fair: a naked teenage witch is a naked teenage witch, mudblood or not.

Eventually the mudblood saw me out of the corner of her eye and screamed and made a big production of trying to cover her tits, which if I'm being totally honest were much smaller than I generally prefer. Her hysteria was truly out of proportion for the situation. Listen witch, you're fucking around with two wizards at the same time. You're clearly fine with being watched. Don't act all modest all the sudden just because I'm standing here. If anything, she really should have been honoured that I found her worth watching.

Draco was naturally livid with me, because _of course_ he was. He had done nothing but bitch and complain since that disastrous break-in at the Ministry of Magic that sent me to Azkaban two years prior. Just add this to my list of unforgivable crimes, son, for catching you in the act in a semi-public location. Maybe next time lock the damn door and throw up some silencing charms, hmm?

What followed was one of the most awkward, uncomfortable, and strange conversations of my entire life, and one that I have shared only with my darling mostly-sane wife. Until now.

Once I got past my initial desire to curse both the Potter brat and the mudblood, my next instinct was to forbid my son to have anything to do with either of them. Never let it be said though that I am anything other than a consummate Slytherin, and one with exceptionally fantastic hair at that.

You see, Potter was victorious in battle, and in the short time that had passed since the battle ended, it seemed clear that the wizarding world was about to bow at his feet and offer him the world, and I had to use this to my advantage.

I let him know that I was perfectly aware of the role my wife had played in his subterfuge in the Forbidden Forest. If it weren't for Narcissa, Bellatrix would have gleefully sliced his head off and burned his body to a crisp. He owed the Malfoy family a life debt, and I intended to claim it.

Draco most thoroughly objected to my presence and my attempt to broker a deal with his lovers, but I have a good 25 years of plotting and scheming on him. I will give credit - grudgingly - where it is due: the mudblood drives a hard bargain. Regrettably I had nothing to hold over the head of that bushy-haired know-it-all mudblood, but it was clear she loved Potter, and she obviously had some level of affection for my son. I knew I would have to prey on her bleeding heart nature.

When it was all said and done, Potter and the mudblood, who I am supposed to be referring to by her name and not 'mudblood' as it is apparently "offensive" or "derogatory" or something along those lines, agreed to testify to any and all that the Malfoy family were not willing supporters of the Dark Lord. They would speak publicly about how my family had assisted them in their efforts to defeat the noseless wanker once known as Lord Voldemort and ensure to the best of their abilities that Narcissa, Draco, and I did not see the inside of a prison cell for our role in the war.

Once our freedom was secured, I agreed that Narcissa and I would voice our public support for Draco's 'relationship' with the two of them (even though it would certainly cause an uproar in polite society), and I would not be permitted to cut Draco off from his inheritance or use my role as the head of the most ancient and noble House of Malfoy to force him into an arranged pureblood marriage. I was not particularly thrilled about that, but needs must. As long as the Granger chit stayed in the picture, I could at least get an heir out of Draco, even if it was a half-blood. I figured if my options were no heir or a half-blood heir, I could tolerate a half-blood. Besides, I was not forbidden from using my role as the head of the House of Malfoy from brokering an arranged marriage for _Draco's_ future offspring. I figured I could always wed my future grandson to a proper pureblood witch and eventually breed the muggle blood out of the family. It was better than going back to Azkaban.

Plus by accepting his 'relationship' there was the chance that Draco would tire of the two of them and go do his duty with a pureblood witch at some point. There's an element of reverse psychology at play here. Parents everywhere know how this works: your child wants to do something you hate. If you tell them you hate it, it only strengthens their resolve to do it. If you shrug your shoulders and say, "Have at it," they may still go ahead and do it, but with decidedly less enthusiasm than they would before because you've removed their burning desire to prove you wrong.

The mudblood also added an absurd additional condition that I was not to harm a house elf ever again, as she and Potter were both apparently still stuck on that former elf of mine I might have kicked down the stairs a few times. I had vague recollections then of Draco writing me from Hogwarts to complain about her crusade to save the house elves. What was it called again? BARF? PUKE? It was something that had to do with vomit. I decided then I would need Narcissa to speak to the girl as her public relations skills were truly atrocious. Almost as bad as her hair. Perhaps Narcissa could do something about that was well though.

It was clear over the course of these negotiations that this triumvirate had been together for some time. I have no idea how long whatever was going on between the three of them had been going on, nor did I particularly want to know. I suppose given how much firewhiskey I consumed during Draco's 7th year, it's possible I may have been too drunk to pick up on any clues. It was not my finest year, okay?

And thus our unholy alliance was forged.

Now, at the time I assumed that even with testimony from Potter and the mudblood, ahem, _Miss Granger_ , I would still need to grease a few palms, if you know what I mean. Bribery is a long-standing, grand tradition in the wizarding world, after all. I also assumed I would need to hide a few proverbial bodies. And some literal ones as well.

I could have done without Shacklebolt taking over as Minister for Magic, but I suppose there are worse candidates out there. It was glorious to watch him sputter in outrage as the Boy-Who-Lived and his female sidekick testified on my family's behalf. It was almost as enjoyable as watching all of the Weasleys lose their collective minds when we were set free.

Having to smile for the cameras and pretend to be okay with my son and heir's public romance with Potter and Granger was less than enjoyable, but I've been through worse in my life. When you measure that unpleasant task against others in my life, well, it _did_ make the Top 10 list, but I admit it could have been worse. It wasn't as awful as watching Nagini eat a witch alive on my dining room table or spending time in Azkaban with no hope of freedom. It was certainly better than that time I accidentally walked in on Bellatrix getting it on with the Dark Lord after his nose-less resurrection.

After expert testimony from Potter and Granger, and a truly shocking amount of Galleons changing hands, I was indeed spared the indignity of Azkaban.

I was ordered to serve time under house arrest whilst working with a team of Aurors to cleanse Malfoy Manor of residual dark magic incurred during its unfortunate term as a Death Eater Dorm. I was not happy about the house arrest, but the rest of it… I'm sure Kingsley Shacklebolt thinks he one upped me by making me strip my home of dark magic, but really, it was the magical equivalent of the government paying to redecorate my home. Narcissa had grown tired of some of the existing decor, and we certainly were not going to eat off a table on which the Dark Lord had had sex, so I freely admit to using the my ancestor's wand - still hidden from the Aurors as I was not technically supposed to have a wand as a condition of my house arrest - to add dark magic to a few things to make sure the Ministry would have to haul them off and deal with it themselves.

You see, that's how it works. If they take your cursed object, they have to return it sans curse or replace it, and thanks to Potter's intervention and the Ministry's knowledge that the Dark Lord himself had resided in my home, I could pass the buck on any responsibility for any dark objects found in my possession. I cannot say for certain, but it is highly possible that with the deaths of so many dark wizards and witches in the war, yours truly became Britain's foremost expert in the use of dark magic. Let's just say there were a lot of curses the Ministry was unable to remove, and a lot of items they then had to destroy and replace.

Yes, I must say that I rather appreciate that new dining table, and Narcissa is most pleased with the new drapes and chandeliers in the drawing room.

Shacklebolt promised a new Ministry, a better Ministry after the fall of the Dark Lord. I can't say that I blame him there, for the Ministry was deficient in many ways even before my brethren took it over. He does seem nominally better at running a government than some of his predecessors, so I can't complain too much. Although I must admit I could have done without all his whole stupid "Death Eater Therapy" program.

Let's take all the Death Eaters who did not die or get sent to prison and make them go to therapy with a squib therapist to talk about their problems and their feelings and make sure they're all nice and reformed and ready to be released into society.

What a dumb fucking idea.

~oOo~

I paused then, realising that perhaps "dumb fucking idea" was perhaps not the best turn of phrase to use in front of said squib therapist. After all, I did need him to sign off on the Ministry's required paperwork to fully free me from the shackles of house arrest and probation. I looked over at him and twisted my lips in what I hoped looked like a bit of a smile.

The rather drab and timid man sitting across from me might have been petrified for all that he moved, staring at me with a look of horror on his face.

"I realise that it seems a bit… _uncouth_ … to refer to this therapy program as a 'dumb fucking idea,' but I am supposed to be _honest_ here, am I not?" I questioned. This whole therapy thing was all pretty new to me, after all.

He continued to stare at me, as if shocked by everything I'd just explained about my life. It is not like I would have chosen therapy, and certainly not with a squib, although I suppose a squib is at least one step up from a muggle. At least a squib has some knowledge of our world. I can only imagine how insane I would have sounded to a filthy muggle.

I raised an eyebrow as I waited for a response. Seeing none, I heaved a painful sigh, for it really was a waste of my time to have to participate in a mandated therapy session, pouring out my soul and my life experiences to a complete stranger, only to have him end up in a shocked, non-responsive stupor.

I waved a hand in front of the man's face, which finally seemed to snap him out of whatever pathetic magic-less state he'd fallen into.

"Well, that is that," I said firmly. "I have told you all there is to tell about my life and my experiences in the war. I cannot say that this has been anything approaching enjoyable, but it is better than a foray in Azkaban, that is for certain."

I leaned forward in my chair then and motioned toward him. "I believe we are done here. Just sign the Ministry's parchment, and I shall be on my way."

He fumbled with the starkly white parchments in front of him at his desk.

"Um, yes, well, Mr. Malfoy, sir," he said, seemingly afraid to look me in the eye.

"Yes?"

"Um, I think perhaps… perhaps there has been a misunderstanding," he said in a most apologetic tone.

"How so?"

I raised my eyebrow again and waited for him to continue. I was painfully obvious to even the most uneducated that this pathetic squib found me frightening and oh what a delicious feeling _that_ was! It was nice to know that the words "Death Eater" and the name Malfoy still carried with them a certain level of intimidation, despite the Dark Lord's utter failure.

"Well, you see, the point is not just for you to tell me about your, ah, experiences in the war. Therapy is… it's a process, really. You talk, I listen. I ask questions. We work together to discuss your problems, and I as your therapist, um…" his voice trailed off as he finally looked at me in fear.

"Continue," I said icily. I did not know where he was going with this, but I had the general feeling I would not like it.

"I believe, that is, my understanding of what the Ministry of Magic expects with this, ah, program… is for wizards such as yourself to um...express remorse for your wrong-doings, to demonstrate that you have been rehabilitated," he explained.

I frowned as I considered the pathetic man before me. Had I not expressed my remorse over the Dark Lord's failures? Had I not expressed my frustration over his flawed attempts to take over magical Britain? Had I not confessed to numerous crimes that far exceeded anything with which the Wizengamot had charged me? Had I not been brutally honest? For Merlin's sake, what more did this man _want_ from me?

"I'm afraid that I can't possibly just _sign off_ on your rehabilitation at this point because you…" he started to say before I rolled my eyes in irritation.

No longer listening to whatever drivel poured from his mouth, I instead reached for my ancestor's wand. I swished it with a graceful flair and smiled tightly at the man before whispering, _"imperius."_

The wand was still not the most receptive, but it obeyed my command, and my entire being swelled with satisfaction as I watched his mousy brown eyes glaze over. Oh now this, _this_ was lovely. It had been so long since I'd last cast an unforgivable curse, and damn, did it feel good! It would feel even better to cast like this with my new wand, but first things first.

With a subtle twist of my wand, I directed him to the magical parchment from the Ministry and made him sign it using that infernal muggle writing instrument. His signature complete, the document disappeared with a pop, to be filed at the Ministry.

Still holding my control over him - muggles and squibs alike were so very easy to control with the _imperius_ \- I withdrew my new wand from an inner pocket in my cloak. Like the previous wand so cruelly taken by the Dark Lord, this wand was elm with a dragon heartstring core. Once my house arrest ended and my probationary period began, I had been granted official permission to have a new wand, but a trace was placed on it until the terms of my probation were met.

I only had to wait a few minutes before the signed parchment was apparently received and filed at the Ministry. My new wand shimmered, and the trace mercifully disappeared.

I was a free wizard.

After two wars, a stay in prison, months spent hosting the Dark Lord in my home, house arrest, and probation, I was _free_.

I tilted my head at the squib and debated offing him. But no, to be fair this whole notion of Death Eater Therapy wasn't his idea. No sense in taking my irritation out on him or in committing a crime that could get me sent back to prison just as I was finally free of the Ministry's shackles.

Frankly, I think my willingness to NOT kill the man ought to be more than sufficient proof of my redemption. See how generous I can be?

Instead I cast a quick _legilimens_ and planted a false memory of him agreeing that I had completed this requirement in my probation. One more simple _obliviate_ to remove any pesky disagreement over what I'd said, and I was done.

The birds were chipping, and the sun was shining when I left his filthy muggle office and apparated home. It felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my aristocratic and if I must say, rather beautifully sculpted shoulders. I felt so much lighter. Perhaps, as they say, confessions really IS good for the soul.

Hmmm… I should consider that more fully. Perhaps a regular confessional of some sort might be warranted.

I put that notion aside for the time being and made my way to my study, where I settled in, placing my new wand atop my desk. Regrettably it did not fit my snake-head cane of old, which was unfortunate as the cane provided that certain _je ne sais quois_. Aesthetic, and all that, you know. Well, that and it was useful for whacking elves and anyone else in my way. Perhaps I would have to have a new cane made for my new wand.

I snapped my fingers for an elf and demanded a firewhiskey. In the aftermath of the battle, I was most concerned that the mudblood, er, um, that muggleborn witch my son is fucking would utterly ruin house elves for me what with her absurd demands, but oddly enough they still find me terrifying and rush to bow and scrape and do my bidding. I find it strange that the less I yell and order punishment, the more efficient and helpful they become. It's almost as if they respond well to good treatment, but surely that can't be right.

I had hoped that perhaps Draco would quickly grow tired of Potter and the mud- er, muggleborn once he was free to be more openly involved with them, but alas, they were still very much involved. Mercifully I did not have to see them often, as apparently the mud- er muggleborn had some issue with spending time at Malfoy Manor. Bitch, please. Like you're the only person to ever be tortured here?

Instead they're living in a rather posh London townhome my family owns because Draco says it's "free from 'tainted memories'" or something along those lines. I haven't told him that his great-grandfather murdered his mistress there many years ago. I think I'll save that story for Christmas morning.

Drink in hand, I unlocked a drawer in my desk and pulled out a thick file. I might have been on house arrest without official use of a wand, but I'd had months to follow the news of the Ministry's rebuilding, and now that I was a free wizard, I had a rather lengthy to-do list waiting for me. There were politicians to bribe, laws to amend, and a whole wizarding world to shape in my image.

Plus I really had to do something about my son's wholly inappropriate relationship. Oh sure, _I_ was bound by a magical vow to keep Draco as my heir and to not force him into a pureblood marriage, but _Narcissa_ was not. She's not especially thrilled about their relationship either. Toujours Pur and all that. The Blacks may be insane, but I can appreciate their desire for purity. It appeared that I had a scheme to concoct with my dear wife.

I took a long sip of my firewhiskey and exhaled as I leaned back in my chair. Yes, I suppose it's true what they say: there really is no rest for the wicked.

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, it's not so bad to be Lucius Malfoy after all.

~Fin~

I am sad to say that we've come to the end of this crazy journey, and now you know how Lucius Malfoy survived the war and avoided a lengthy stay in Azkaban. I'm certain Lucius would say that he paid one JK Rowling a lot of Galleons to not include that tawdry bit about Draco and that scar-faced brat and the mudblood, er, muggleborn in the epilogue of her book, but it absolutely happened. Really. It did.

I would like to thank Tassana Burrfoot, Ariel Riddle, and Lovergurrl411 for their encouragement as I wrote this story. Also, thank you to Lovergurrl411 for putting the idea into my head that this whole time Lucius has been telling his story to a therapist. I've had a request to take on The Cursed Child next, also from Lucius's POV. I've added it to my list of stories to be written, but it's on the backburner at the moment whilst I try to think through the plot.

Thank you to everyone who has followed along on this journey and commented or PM'd me about this story. Drama Queen Lucius might be my favorite character _ever_ , and I'm so glad that others have enjoyed him as much as I have.

Cheers,

Elle


End file.
